Nintendo closes in on Zelda Tears of the Kingdom leaker

Nintendo's lawyers don't mess around when it comes to leaks and copyright infringement

Nintendo has issued a subpoena to Discord to uncover the identity of the person who leaked the art book for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom after the 200-page book was released online earlier this year. The company also reportedly sent multiple copyright DMCA requests to Discord to stop the spread of the leaks.

Tears of the Kingdom leaks started spreading in late February, when a user in a Discord server called “Tears of the Kingdom Official Discord Server” started posting images of the art book, eventually posting every page of the book. It was subsequently compiled into PDFs, which were spread around the internet, and some photos were even posted on news websites.

Nintendo seems to have not been a fan of that, as you might expect, and according to documents obtained by TorrentFreak, issued a number of DMCA takedown notices to Discord. The company requested that the content and links to it be removed, and eventually that the server itself be taken down over its use of the word ‘official’.

Now, Nintendo has issued a subpoena for one user in particular, called Julien, asking for the name, address, telephone number, and email address of the user. It seems as if Nintendo believes this Julien person is the originator of the leaks, while the user themself previously said they got the photos “from a friend.”

Nintendo’s claim reads: “NoA [Nintendo of America] is requesting the attached proposed subpoena that would order (“Discord”) to disclose the identity. [This is] including the name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), and e-mail addresses(es) of the user Julien#2743. [The person] who is responsible for posting infringing content that appeared at the following channel Discord channel Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.”

Discord doesn’t necessarily have to comply with the request right off the bat, but it’s likely that the chat client will do so regardless to avoid a lengthy and potentially expensive legal process. It’s not currently known what Nintendo plans to do with the details if obtained, but many expect it will lead to a copyright case and potentially a breach of contract case too.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is set to launch on the Nintendo Switch on May 12, 2023, and a recent presentation showed off over 10 minutes of gameplay. So far, it looks to be repeating a lot of what made Breath of the Wild great, while also introducing exciting new twists.