Just over a month ago, someone leaked the art book for the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Collector's Edition. The book didn't do much for story spoilers, but it did have sketches and renderings of characters, weapons, landscapes, and something called "Hateno Cheese," which led to fans joking about how Link will reforge the Triforce, only it’s made out of cheese wedges.

The original Reddit post has long since been taken down, but you can still find leaked materials on social media and Discord. In fact, Nintendo seems a little upset with Discord over the leak and has demanded the chat program hand over the personal details of the leaker.

As reported by TorrentFreak (via VGC), Nintendo sent a subpoena to Discord on Friday, April 4 in California district court. Nintendo is seeking to compel Discord "to disclose the identity, including the name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), and e-mail addresses(es) of the user Julien#2743, who is responsible for posting infringing content that appeared at the following channel Discord channel Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom."

TorrekFreak also noted that Discord was sent a DMCA takedown request soon after the leak was sprung back in February. Discord said it removed the content "promptly," but sharing of files between individuals continued. When Nintendo also asked to take the entire channel down for this very reason, Discord only issued a warning and told Nintendo to file a trademark complaint. Seems like Discord is only willing to go as far as the law requires when it comes to shutting down leaks.

We don't know if Discord has handed over Julien's information or not, but we do know that Nintendo is likely going to press for the source of the leak. Julien said on Discord that they received the art book from a "long-time friend" at Nintendo, although one wonders if they’re still long-time friends now that lawyers are on their case.

The recent gameplay preview of Tears of the Kingdom has done more to show us what's coming in the Breath of the Wild sequel than any art book ever could, but Nintendo is notoriously protective of its intellectual property. I wouldn't expect the Zelda publisher to let this go until someone is behind bars.

Discord is proving to be an unlikely source of leaks these days. The recent leak of classified documents from the US Department of Defense has been traced back to a surprising source: a Minecraft Discord server. It seems that someone tried to settle an argument over the war in Ukraine by posting top-secret documents they lifted from another Discord server, which then began circulating on Telegram, 4Chan, and Twitter.



Posted: Apr 13, 2023 9:11 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://www.thegamer.com/nintendo-discord-subpoena-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-leaker/