In late February this year, a 200-page art book for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom which featured new character designs, enemies and locations was leaked online. A scanned version of the art made its way into the public domain, but those behind the leak left no clue about their identities.
However, it seems Nintendo has been following the leak as two months later, the Japanese video game company has several suspects that could be responsible. According to a report from TorrentFreak, Nintendo had initially issued a DMCA complaint to Discord just days after the art book leak in February.
The notice mentioned the, ‘Tears of the Kingdom Official Discord Server,’ an unofficial channel that featured six URLs showcasing unsolicited images or linked to images from Nintendo’s unreleased Tears of the Kingdom art book.
In response, Discord acknowledged the complaint and told Nintendo that the content, “Will be removed promptly.” However, it seems Discord did not exactly take down the server as Nintendo wanted. The Japanese company followed up with a request for “Immediate review and takedown” of the Discord channel, noting that members were still sharing the pre-release artwork.
Nintendo wrote that, “Additionally, some members have been assigned the role of ‘The PDF Pirate’ which identifies them as a source for PDF files of the infringing art book images. For your review, we have also provided screenshots from the server featuring four members and a brief description below highlighting their activity in the server.”
Discord responded that it had, “Issued a warning to the server for the reported activity.” Adding that if the Switch console maker was, “Concerned about potential consumer confusion,” it may consider filing a trademark complaint. In response, Nintendo of America has now taken a stringent approach by filing a DMCA subpoena application on Friday, April 7th at a California district court.
The filing by Nintendo demands that Discord discloses the identity (names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses) of one Julien#2743 who according to the filing, “Is responsible for posting infringing content that appeared at the following channel Discord channel Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom…”
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.