While the game gently leaks.
The art of the game leak is a delicate one. Lord knows the many ways it can go wrong; incorrect (or worse, deliberately false) information, changes post-leak, and, of course, legal ramifications. And the latter is probably the most dangerous; companies worth millions- or even billions- coming after you for something you unquestionably did. And so, anonymity is your best friend in that case.
Which brings us to Activision and Call of Duty. Namely, a leaker posted a long-since deleted clip to YouTube last week of what they purported to be the new battle royale mode in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The clip naturally got shared everywhere, which presumably pissed Activision off. And so it was that the clip got copyright claimed and blasted from the internet. But they didn’t stop there; soon after, people started noticing that various Reddit posts and Twitter threads were being taken down for copyright infringement as well.
Last week also saw the leak, via a Redditor, of what is purportedly the game’s cover art. That, too, got taken down. And what’s more, it was discovered that Activision has spent the time since subpoenaing Reddit for the identity of the person who leaked the artwork. From TorrentFreak’s relaying of the court documents:
“Petitioner, Activision Publishing, Inc. through its undersigned counsel of record, hereby requests that the Clerk of this Court issue a subpoena to Reddit, Inc. to identify alleged infringers at issue, pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (‘DMCA’), 17 U.S.C. § 512(h).
The DMCA Subpoena is directed to Reddit, Inc. Reddit is the service provider to which the subject of the subpoena – Reddit user ‘Assyrian241O’ – posted infringing Activision content.”
The interesting part, here, is that Activision isn’t pointing to the URL of the offending image; rather, they’re pointing to the Reddit thread that posted a link to the image, which is, in fact, hosted elsewhere. But since the image isn’t hosted in that thread, that means the thread itself contains no actual infringing material. So, you know, this probably isn’t going to do much to make Reddit budge.
This isn’t the first time these sorts of things have happened, and probably won’t be the last. And, chances are, Activision won’t be successful here.
Source: Gizmodo
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