Take-Two, Rockstar's parent company, has filed two petitions for subpoenas in the Southern District of New York, Engadget reports, aiming to identify whoever is behind the Grand Theft Auto VI footage that started spreading on 18 August. One goes to Microsoft, the other to Discord, and both are after the same thing: identities.
The Microsoft petition concerns a GitHub repository that allegedly hosted Take-Two's copyrighted material, and asks for business and investigative records tied to Microsoft's internal investigation of the "cyberleek" persona. The Discord petition names users CYBERLEEK, CINEMATICROCKSTAR and Surfer24k, a server run by GTA V content creator DarkViperAU, and another server called !Odyssey. Take-Two wants full names, phone numbers, linked accounts, and anything those accounts shared connected to Grand Theft Auto, Rockstar or Cyberleek.
The leaks didn't pause for the paperwork
Here's the part that makes this different from a standard legal escalation: the leaking continued. PC Gamer notes that another leak dropped the same day the subpoenas were filed, including two full minutes of driving footage. Earlier videos suggested Cyberleek has, or had, access to a playable build of the game rather than a folder of clips. A subpoena is a slow instrument. Someone with a working build is a fast one.
The leaker has also published a manifesto demanding Rockstar and Take-Two apologise for "anti-consumerism" and make a "concrete commitment to do better", which is a lot of moral architecture to build on top of a crime. The Stop Killing Games campaign has publicly distanced itself from it, saying using illegal means to make a point is unacceptable.
Two point eight billion dollars of attention
Take-Two's stock took a $2.8 billion hit in market cap after the leaks, which sounds like a catastrophe until you look at the company's size. The market's reaction was less about the footage and more about what uncontrolled leaks do to a marketing plan built around a 27 November Netflix exclusive and a 2026 release. Every clip that surfaces outside that plan is a clip Take-Two didn't choose to show.
The 2022 precedent isn't encouraging
This is the second GTA VI leak, and the first one's ending is worth remembering. In 2022, an 18-year-old member of the Lapsus$ hacking group leaked early footage, accessed bizarrely through an Amazon Fire TV Stick from a hotel room. A mental health assessment found him unfit to stand trial and likely to reoffend if released, and a judge handed down an indefinite hospital order.
That outcome satisfied exactly nobody, and it did nothing to change the conditions that produced it. Take-Two will get its names this time, probably within weeks. Whether getting them stops anything is a separate question, and the same day's fresh footage is already a partial answer.