(Photo : miHoYo / Screenshot taken from official website)
Genshin Impact creator miHoYo wins a court's favor as social media platform X is being required to reveal the identities of several of the game's leakers.
The subpoena comes after the social media platform tried to have the case against it thrown out. The news of the judge's decision to rule against X's efforts also detailed the latest in miHoYo's crackdown on Genshin Impact leakers.
Court Orders X To Identify Genshin Impact Leakers
The publisher of Genshin Impact, Cognosphere, filed the subpoena last fall. It was part of efforts to force X Corp. to "disclose the identity, including the name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), and email address (es)" of the ones behind four popular leaker accounts.
The accounts in question are @HutaoLoverGI, @GIHutaoLover, @HutaoLover77, and @FurinaaLover. Three of these accounts have already been suspended on the social media platform.
The only one remaining that is still active is @FurinaaLover but has deleted all but one of the posts it has on X. It seems that Cognosphere believes that only one person was responsible for controlling all four leaker accounts, according to IGN.
Cognosphere argued that the leakers infringed on its copyright in the publishing of previously unreleased material related to Genshin Impact. However, X tried to quash the subpoena on First Amendment and privacy grounds.
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The social media platform asked the court in a previous filing if the publisher's request was "sufficient to satisfy any First Amendment free speech safeguards applicable to the anonymous speakers."
The court's ruling said that the speech in question, which is leaked Genshin Impact material, is not "core First Amendment expression." It added that Cognosphere acted in good faith and "has sufficiently shown a prima facie case of copyright violation" in its request for the DMCA subpoena.
Legal Battle Against Leakers
This is not Cognosphere's first time moving aggressively to reveal the identities of leakers of Genshin Impact on social media platforms. One example is from 2021 when data miners started sharing information about an upcoming Genshin Impact update, PCGamer said.
The publisher warned that it would "increase its efforts to deal with "illegal disclosures." The year after, the company followed through on its promise. It filed a suit against Discord to compel it to reveal the identity of the leaker known as Ubatcha.
The one who ruled against X's recent efforts against Cosnosphere's legal efforts was U.S. magistrate judge Peter Kang. he said that there was "no First Amendment right to commit copyright infringement," according to MSN.
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