GTA 6 Leak Subpoenas Approved for Microsoft and Discord

A New York court has granted Take-Two Interactive’s requests for DMCA subpoenas aimed at Microsoft and Discord, giving the Rockstar Games parent company a legal route to seek identifying records connected to this week’s GTA 6 leaks. Game File‘s Stephen Totilo reported on 22 August 2026 that the orders were approved on Friday, one day after Take-Two filed its applications.

The distinction matters because the case moved quickly. Take-Two was still asking the court to authorise the subpoenas on Thursday, 20 August. By Friday, those requests had been granted, advancing its effort to identify the person or group using the CYBERLEEK name after several days of leaked GTA 6 gameplay clips.

Take-Two’s Requests Were Granted on 21 August

Take-Two filed the applications with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The petitions said the subpoenas were being sought to “obtain the identity of an alleged infringer or infringers” connected to unauthorised GTA 6 material.

Microsoft was targeted partly because copyrighted GTA 6 material was allegedly posted to GitHub, which Microsoft owns. The Discord request concerns accounts and communities Take-Two believes were involved in posting or circulating the leaked material. The subpoenas seek production of records by 4 September at 10 a.m. EDT.

Discord has acknowledged the legal process. A spokesperson told Variety that the company sometimes receives DMCA-related subpoenas and said, “We review and comply with valid subpoenas when we receive them, as is standard and routine for companies like ours.”

Microsoft had also publicly sided with Take-Two before the latest court order appeared. Xbox CTO Scott Van Vliet wrote on Friday, “We are working closely with Take-Two and Rockstar Games to support efforts to protect creative works and intellectual property.” Totilo noted that the Microsoft order appeared on the court docket roughly an hour after Van Vliet posted the statement.

GTA 6 Leaks Continued for Four Straight Days

The court action followed an unusually sustained run of footage posted under the CYBERLEEK identity. Rather than one large dump, new material appeared repeatedly through the week:

The footage has repeatedly been removed and reposted across different sites, while URLs promoted inside some of the videos stopped functioning by the middle of the week. Take-Two has been attempting to wipe copies from the internet, although mirrors and detailed descriptions have continued circulating.

The “LEEK” clip is particularly notable because it appears to show someone interacting directly with a build of the game rather than simply redistributing existing promotional footage. Rockstar has not publicly authenticated the videos, however, and the age of the build shown in them remains unknown.

The Subpoenas Seek Far More Than Usernames

Take-Two’s requests extend well beyond asking Microsoft and Discord for the name behind a CYBERLEEK account. The Microsoft subpoena seeks internal business and investigative records connected to Microsoft’s own investigation of the “cyberleek” persona, with the stated goal of identifying the person, people or entities behind it.

It also seeks information associated with accounts communicating through Discord servers named in the filing from 1 June 2026 onwards. Requested data includes account IDs, registration emails, registration and last-login IP addresses, phone numbers, linked services such as Google or Xbox accounts and associated device identifiers.

The Microsoft request goes further by seeking relevant device or telemetry records and GTA, Rockstar or Cyberleek-related material associated with OneDrive accounts. That means Take-Two is trying to connect the online CYBERLEEK identity across several services rather than relying on one account name or one platform.

The Discord subpoena similarly asks for backend metadata or telemetry records, original message logs, IP access logs, email addresses, phone numbers, connected accounts, registration timestamps and device identifiers for accounts associated with servers and channels named in the filing.

Those filings reference aliases including CYBERLEEK, CINEMATICROCKSTAR and Surfer24k, alongside replacement handles and several Discord communities. Popular GTA creator Matthew “DarkViperAU” Judge responded after one entry referred to a “DarkViperAU editors’ server”, saying on X that the listed community was not his editors’ Discord and that he knew nothing about the leaks. He also said there were no copies of the leaked clips in either of his Discord servers.

The breadth of those requests is one of the most consequential parts of the case. The subpoenas are not limited to asking for information attached to one suspected leaker account, but seek records that could help Take-Two map accounts, devices, messages and linked services associated with the communities identified in its filings.

CYBERLEEK Mixed a Manifesto With Crypto Promotion

The leaked footage itself has carried more than GTA 6 gameplay. Videos were overlaid with links and messages promoting a memecoin, while the CYBERLEEK site threatened similar hacks and leaks against other game companies that did not follow a list of stated “commandments”.

Those demands included providing offline modes for online games, avoiding what the group called “fake single-player DLC”, and not taking digital pre-orders before a game has been released and independently reviewed. The last demand overlaps directly with GTA 6, whose pre-orders opened before Rockstar had released official gameplay footage or previewed the game to press.

The campaign has also included attempts to make money from attention around the leaks. Insider Gaming reported that CYBERLEEK began charging for participation in a poll asking what content should be leaked next. The group’s website later advertised placements in future leaks and allegedly requested as much as $164,000 in cryptocurrency simply to make contact about advertising arrangements.

Even groups that could sympathise with parts of the manifesto have rejected the method. The head of the Stop Killing Games movement wrote on Reddit that “using illegal means to make a point is unacceptable to us”, arguing that developers who worked on the project would bear the consequences of the leak.

Rockstar Has Not Confirmed What Build Was Leaked

Several clips appear to expose previously unseen GTA 6 mechanics and locations, but their presence in leaked footage does not establish that those features will be included in the November release. One point of discussion among players is a possible fuel system for vehicles, which some footage appears to indicate, but the build’s age has not been established.

Rockstar has not publicly confirmed the authenticity of the CYBERLEEK footage or identified when the apparent build was created. That leaves a gap between what can be seen in the leaked clips and what can reliably be treated as a feature of the finished game.

Take-Two has dealt with major leaks before. The 2022 GTA 6 breach exposed around 90 videos and resulted in an arrest, with a retrial still pending as of the latest reporting. The publisher also previously responded to Borderlands 3 leaks by sending investigators to the home of a YouTuber connected to leaked information.

Rockstar’s Official Extended Look Arrives on 27 August

The leaks have arrived immediately before Rockstar’s next planned presentation of the game. An official “extended look” at GTA 6 is scheduled to premiere through Netflix on 27 August before becoming available on YouTube and other platforms.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said during an earnings call on 7 August that GTA 6 had made an “exceptional start to preorders” after five days on sale, although the company did not disclose sales numbers. GTA 6 remains scheduled to launch for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S on 19 November 2026, with the 27 August presentation now set to become Rockstar’s next official look at the game while the CYBERLEEK investigation continues.