Grand Theft Auto 6 is still months away from release, but one leaker who appears to have a build of the game has been posting snippets online over the past week. Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of publisher Rockstar Games, has gone to court to get to the bottom of who this leaker could be.
The stakes are high for Take-Two, as GTA 6 has been so eagerly awaited and is expected to sell so well that the rest of the games industry has stayed away from its November release date by cramming their launches into the months before, or waiting until February 2027 at the earliest. Official GTA 6 trailers get millions of views, and are so popular that Netflix scored exclusive access to the next teaser ahead of its public release. Take-Two has been extremely careful in how it’s dripped info about the game, which is why it’s pursuing legal action against a prominent leaker.
Take-Two filed a petition with the US District Court in the Southern District of New York on Thursday, asking the court to issue a subpoena to Microsoft and Discord for information about suspected GTA 6 leakers, as reported earlier by Kotaku and shown in filings reported on by The Verge. The company wants data from Discord servers and from a repository hosted on GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft, in order to identify the individuals posting the copyrighted content that allegedly infringes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
“The copyrighted material includes but is not limited to audiovisual content, artwork, images, dialogue or other creative elements,” the filing alleges. “Take-Two, through its counsel of record, has submitted a sworn declaration confirming that the purpose for which the DMCA subpoena is sought is to obtain the identity of an alleged infringer or infringers, and that such information will only be used for the purpose of protecting Take-Two’s rights.”
In the court filing, Take-Two lists the account names of multiple Discord users that it’s seeking info on, which includes a bevy of data that could identify them: original message logs, IP access logs, email addresses, phone numbers, connected accounts, linked services such as Google and Xbox, backend metadata and telemetry, and device identifiers, among much else. As for Microsoft, Take-Two only requests details from the GitHub repository that GTA 6 was posted on, which is a page dedicated to info about the game leaks, as well as attempts to identify the leakers. The filing doesn’t specify whether it wants information about that repository’s users.
Both filings call for a subpoena to be issued and for the requested information to be produced by Sept. 4. This is not a court order, but rather a request to the court clerk to issue the DMCA subpoena.
A Discord spokesperson said in an emailed statement on Friday that the company “will review and comply with valid subpoenas” when received.
When reached for comment, a Microsoft spokesperson pointed to a post on X by Scott Van Vliet, the chief technology officer for Xbox.
“We are working closely with Take-Two and Rockstar Games to support efforts to protect creative works and intellectual property,” Van Vliet wrote on Friday.
The GTA 6 leaks began in mid-August when a short gameplay clip was posted on social media by a group calling itself CyberLeek. According to the GitHub repository, nine gameplay videos have been posted on various video-sharing sites. The clips are only a minute or two of footage of one of the GTA 6 protagonists, Jason, driving around town, stealing cars and conducting other activities. Some of the videos show cutscenes and tutorials from the game, but they don’t appear to be in any logical order.
A clip posted online Wednesday had the message, “No physical discs? Then more leeks!” IGN reported, implying that Rockstar would need to reverse its decision to make GTA 6 a digital-only game. Rockstar confirmed there wouldn’t be a physical disc for the game when it revealed the preorder details and pricing back in June. Retail stores will have a physical edition for sale; however, that version just contains a code for the game, not a disc. Rockstar has yet to comment on the threat.
GTA 6 will be released on Nov. 19 for the PS5 and Xbox Series X and S consoles. The Standard Edition will cost $80, while the Ultimate Edition will cost $100.
