GTA 6 NEWS · LEAK INVESTIGATION
Take-Two Wants Its Latest GTA 6 Leak Subpoena Sealed — Because the Hunt Is Working
The GTA 6 leak saga has entered its courtroom phase. Take-Two Interactive has filed a new round of DMCA subpoena paperwork in its hunt for the leaker known as Cyberleek — and this time, the company doesn’t want the public reading along. In an August 28 filing reported by TorrentFreak, Take-Two described its investigation as “rapidly evolving” and asked the court to keep its latest Discord subpoena request under seal, arguing that public disclosure would tip off the very people it’s hunting. Here’s what the filing says, and why the strategy has visibly changed.
What Happened: From Broad Dragnet to Sealed Targeting
When the leaks started flowing in August, Take-Two moved fast. It filed DMCA subpoena requests against Discord and Microsoft — seeking “business records and investigative records associated with Microsoft’s internal investigation of the ‘cyberleek’ persona sufficient to identify the user(s),” plus detailed information on potentially thousands of Discord users who interacted with certain servers. Follow-up subpoenas went to X and YouTube. Those early filings were public, which is how we know how wide the first net was cast — and how controversial it became, with privacy advocates questioning why thousands of bystander users were swept in.
The new filing flips that playbook. According to the August 28 document, “Take-Two has identified one additional Discord user and obtained additional identifying information for a previously identified Discord user, as well as additional information concerning the community servers identified in its prior subpoena for which it now seeks more targeted information. These additional accounts and server are believed to be involved in the same infringing activity as that described in Take-Two’s first request.”
Translation: the dragnet has narrowed to specific identified users — exactly one additional Discord account, plus expanded info on one already known to Take-Two, and one community server. A footnote drives the point home: “Take-Two’s investigation of the infringement at issue is rapidly evolving and ongoing,” and the new subpoena “provides additional clarifying information regarding one of the user IDs specified in the first subpoena.”
Why Take-Two Wants the Filing Hidden
The motion to seal is the most revealing part. Take-Two argues the filing isn’t subject to the presumption of public access — and that even if it were, the company’s “countervailing interests” win, because the document “reveals highly sensitive, confidential information about an ongoing investigation into copyright infringement and the misappropriation of Take-Two’s confidential information.”
The stakes, per the filing: “Public disclosure of this information could compromise Take-Two’s ongoing investigation and even tip off the alleged infringers as to the nature and progress of Take-Two’s investigation and information Take-Two has gathered about the infringement, creating a substantial risk that the infringers will delete, destroy, or otherwise conceal evidence of their infringing activities, and/or take further steps to evade identification.”
In plain terms: Take-Two believes it is close enough that publishing the subpoena details would let targets shred evidence and scatter. As of the latest reporting, no ruling on the seal has been made, and the subpoena itself hasn’t been issued. On the same day, Take-Two also withdrew its DMCA subpoena request against Google, repeating that the situation “has been (and is) evolving rapidly as new information becomes available” — a sign the company already has what it needed from that angle. Video Games Chronicle (VGC) independently reported the same filings.
Quick Legal Context: What’s a DMCA Subpoena?
If the courtroom terminology is losing you, here’s the short version. A DMCA subpoena is a special legal tool that lets a copyright holder demand information from third parties — platforms like Discord, Microsoft, X or YouTube — without first having to sue anyone. It’s how Take-Two has been able to move this fast: rather than opening a full lawsuit against an unknown defendant, it’s using the subpoena process to unmask them first.
The courts have been cooperative so far. Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr. of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York granted Take-Two’s original requests to subpoena Discord and Microsoft, and Microsoft has publicly said it’s happy to work with Take-Two and Rockstar to help identify the leaker. Discord took a more cautious line — it told reporters it had yet to be formally served and would “evaluate the validity and scope before responding” once it was.
The first sweep’s breadth was what made headlines: among the named targets was a Discord server tied to YouTuber DarkViperAU’s editors, and the request covered user data for potentially thousands of members who had nothing to do with the leaks. Narrowing the new request to two specific users and one server suggests Take-Two has been separating signal from noise — which is exactly the progress it now doesn’t want the targets to know about.
What happens from here is largely out of public view — and that’s the point. If the court grants the seal, the next substantive update the public gets may be the most dramatic one possible: a named defendant. That’s a pattern these investigations can follow — quiet discovery first, lawsuits once there’s a name to file them against. And Take-Two has shown zero hesitation about escalation: leak hubs and archives have already been taken down as part of the crackdown, and the company dropped the Google subpoena only because it no longer needed what Google had.
The Backstory: Cyberleek, the $200K Rug Pull, and a Very Bad Week
Context for anyone just joining: the leaks came from a figure (or figures) operating as Cyberleek, who dumped gameplay footage and details across the run-up to Rockstar’s Netflix-hosted Extended Look on August 27. The leaker promoted a cryptocurrency tied to the leaks — and then, per PC Gamer, made off with more than $200,000 in what the outlet politely called “the most predictable crypto rug pull ever performed.” The Netflix showcase has since wrapped and broken viewership records anyway.
We’ve tracked the whole saga as it happened: the complete CyberLeek timeline, and Take-Two’s escalating crackdown — subpoenas, shutdowns, and the hunt itself. Discord, for its part, said it would “evaluate the validity and scope before responding” when served; we covered that in Discord’s response to the subpoena.
What This Means for GTA 6
Two things. First, the leak era is functionally over. Between the rug pull, the showcase landing, and Take-Two narrowing from thousands of Discord users to specific targets, the rational move for anyone still holding leaked material is deletion — which, notably, is exactly the behavior Take-Two’s seal motion is trying to prevent evidence of.
Second, the sealed filing is a signal flare: you don’t ask a federal court for secrecy when your investigation is stalled. You ask when it’s converging. Nobody outside Take-Two’s legal team knows how close they are to a name — but the paperwork says “rapidly evolving,” and lawyers don’t usually fight to seal paperwork about dead ends. When the identification drops, it’ll be the biggest games-industry legal story since the 2022 breach. For everything confirmed about the game itself, minus the courtroom drama, our complete GTA 6 timeline has you covered.
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