Take-Two Interactive has gone to federal court to try to unmask the source of a Grand Theft Auto VI leak, filing subpoenas under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against Microsoft and Discord that demand the companies hand over account records tied to a leaker known only by the alias “CyberLeek” — whose real-world identity has not been publicly established. The filing, made August 20 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, gives the two companies until September 4, 2026, to comply.
The subpoenas are part of Take-Two and Rockstar’s response to a leak that began August 18, when CyberLeek started posting unauthorized gameplay clips and an unconfirmed map of Leonida, the fictional state that includes GTA VI’s Vice City setting. It is a separate incident from Rockstar’s September 2022 network breach, in which roughly 90 early-development clips were stolen by a different, unrelated hacker.
Key facts
- Who: Take-Two Interactive, publisher of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto VI
- What: DMCA subpoenas against Microsoft and Discord seeking account records tied to leaker “CyberLeek”
- Where filed: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
- Filed: August 20, 2026
- Compliance deadline: September 4, 2026
- Leak began: August 18, 2026
- Stock impact: Estimated market-value drop of roughly $2.8 billion (Yahoo Finance, VGTimes) to about $2 billion (Insider Gaming)
- Official preview: “Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look” airs Thursday, August 27, 2026, on Netflix
- Release date: Still November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S
Timeline
- August 18, 2026 — CyberLeek begins posting unauthorized GTA VI gameplay clips and an unconfirmed map of Leonida
- August 19, 2026 — More clips surface, including taser use, knife combat and a brief cutscene
- August 20, 2026 — Take-Two files DMCA subpoenas against Microsoft and Discord in the Southern District of New York
- August 21, 2026 — A sixth leaked video reportedly shows a hypercar
- August 22, 2026 — CyberLeek’s website and Telegram channel go offline, replaced by a copyright notice; mirror channels soon reappear
- September 4, 2026 — Deadline for Microsoft and Discord to comply with the subpoenas
- August 27, 2026 — Rockstar’s “Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look” premieres on Netflix, then goes up on YouTube that evening
- November 12, 2026 — Pre-loading begins for GTA VI
- November 19, 2026 — GTA VI releases on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S
What the leaked clips show
The first clips, posted August 18 and each about a minute long, reportedly featured protagonist Jason Duval. They showed:
- A six-star wanted level (a step up from the five-star maximum in earlier games)
- A stamina bar during fistfights
- Fuel and engine gauges on vehicles
- A “karma” or honor system that reportedly reacts to the player’s actions
GTA VI’s two playable characters are Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, though the leaked material reportedly centers on Jason.
More clips followed on August 19, including taser use, knife combat and a brief cutscene, and a sixth video on August 21 was said to show a hypercar in the game. No specific story or plot details from that cutscene have been confirmed publicly.
Neither Rockstar nor Take-Two has issued a public statement confirming the footage is genuine; their response so far has been limited to takedown notices and the subpoenas. Rockstar and Take-Two reportedly issued DMCA takedown notices within hours of the leak appearing, and some outlets read the speed of that response as evidence the clips are real. Others report the footage may come from an older development build, though sources disagree on exactly how old — estimates range from about a year old to roughly three years old, pointing to 2023. Either way, the footage may not reflect the final game due out this November. Complicating the picture further, the same news cycle has also swept in unrelated material being mislabeled as new: footage from the 2022 hack, Grand Theft Auto V mods, at least one clip its own creator has called a hoax, and what several outlets describe as a growing volume of AI-generated fakes. Taken together, whether the leaked clips reflect the game Rockstar will actually ship remains unclear.
The legal fight, and what the subpoenas actually do
A subpoena is a court order compelling someone to hand over information; it is not a lawsuit, and Take-Two has not sued CyberLeek or named a defendant. What it has done is ask Microsoft and Discord for identifying data tied to the CyberLeek persona, including:
- IP addresses
- Phone numbers
- Linked Xbox and Google accounts
- Windows device IDs
- OneDrive contents
The subpoenas also cover related aliases, including “CINEMATICROCKSTAR” and “Surfer24k,” and accounts active in three Discord servers since June 1. Microsoft’s Xbox chief technology officer, Scott Van Vliet, said the company is working with Take-Two and Rockstar to support their intellectual-property protection efforts; a Discord spokesperson said the platform reviews and complies with valid subpoenas.
Separately, Rockstar and Take-Two have filed DMCA takedown notices against reposts of the leaked footage on X, Reddit, Streamable and YouTube. Take-Two’s stock also took a hit: Yahoo Finance and VGTimes both estimated the drop in market value at roughly $2.8 billion, while Insider Gaming reported a lower estimate of about $2 billion.
CyberLeek’s website and Telegram channel went offline the morning of August 22, replaced by a copyright notice, but new mirror channels have since appeared and stayed reachable — the leak has not been fully shut down.
Why CyberLeek says they did it
The leaker published a manifesto titled “No Disc, No Peace,” framing the leak as a protest over what it claims will be a digital-only launch for GTA VI — said to be the first mainline entry in the series without a physical disc option. The manifesto lists three demands, plus a public apology from Rockstar:
- Scrap digital-only pre-orders
- Remove “fake” single-player DLC — paid content the leaker says is already built into the game’s files even though Rockstar has not released or announced it
- Add a mandatory offline mode for single-player play
No Rockstar or Take-Two statement has confirmed a digital-only release, and the companies have not publicly addressed the demands beyond takedowns and legal action.
One thing to avoid
Fake “playable” leak downloads have also started circulating. Security researchers examined a purported 113GB leaked build and found it was actually a roughly 50-kilobyte malware payload padded out with junk data to look large; it is said to try to whitelist the C: drive in Windows Defender and disable security software. GTA VI has no legitimate public beta or PC build available anywhere — any file claiming otherwise should not be downloaded.
What comes next
Rockstar’s own preview, “Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look,” is set to premiere this Thursday, August 27, 2026, on Netflix at 3 p.m. ET, giving Netflix subscribers a six-hour early window before it goes up on Rockstar’s YouTube channel and the GTA VI website at 9 p.m. ET the same day. A viral screenshot claiming the special would run three episodes totaling about 66 minutes has been debunked as fabricated — the image itself used a fake Netflix page layout, not the real special — so only the date and the Netflix-then-YouTube rollout are officially confirmed.
The game’s release date has not changed because of any of this. GTA VI is still scheduled for November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, after two earlier delays from an original fall 2025 window and then a May 26, 2026 date. Take-Two chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick reaffirmed the November date in early August 2026 and said the game would not be delayed again. Pre-loading is scheduled to begin November 12, 2026.