Call of Duty: Modern Warfare publisher Activision has been hard at work shutting down unofficial news and footage of the game’s forthcoming battle royale mode, and now it’s demanding that Reddit turn over data relating to the site’s leakers. Nothing quite validates the accuracy of gaming rumors and leaks quite like publishers aggressively litigating against the pesky rumormongers and leakers disseminating the information, so players can take this as further confirmation of everything they’ve learned thus far.
Earlier this February, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Season 2 launched, introducing a slew of new maps, weapons, and an in-game teaser for a then-unnamed battle royale mode. Since then, an unofficially obtained promotional image revealed the upcoming mode to be titled Warzone, while leaked footage showed off how Warzone’s loot system will work. The latter gameplay leak has been effectively scrubbed from the internet by Activision. The corporation has filed an unknown amount of DMCA takedown notices against YouTubers who shared the footage over the past weeks, and any readers who sought out Screen Rant’s own coverage of the leak probably saw a dreaded grey box where the relevant gameplay video was supposed to be.
Now, TorrentFreak reports that Activision is now setting its litigious sights on Reddit, specifically targeting information relating to leaks that have sprung in the site’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare subreddit. The publisher filed a similar DMCA subpoena against Reddit, Inc. in direct response to a now-deleted image in this thread, which can be presumed to be the Warzone poster that first ignited rumors of the mode’s existence. In one of their few intact comments, Redditor u/Assyrian2410 (whose account is now deactivated) admitted that they got the sensitive material from an “inside source.” As with all of the Warzone leaks, Activision seems keen on rooting out that source, demanding that Reddit produce “information, including name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), e-mail address(es), and IP address(es) sufficient to identify the individual(s) responsible.”
It’s unknown at this time if Reddit has complied with Activision’s legal demands, nor is it known how much user data Reddit holds onto after an account’s deletion. Although the rogue user in question may have been complicit in the breach of another party’s non-disclosure agreement with Activision (or perhaps even in violation of an NDA, themselves), but it can be hoped for the privacy of all Redditors that the site doesn’t hand out what logged sensitive data it keeps from deleted users when the stakes are as low as community hype surrounding another Call of Duty: Modern Warfare mode. Activision is well within its right to fervently protect its IP ahead of Warzone’s likely March release window, but Reddit should also be free to stand up for online privacy rights in this low-risk scenario.
The current rumors circulating within the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare community suggest that a select group of content creators will soon be given exclusive access to Warzone so that Activision can show off gameplay on its own terms. For the sake of the untold number of individuals being prosecuted over a battle royale mode in a video game, the latest rumor could only be made even better if it was shortly followed up with another massive update for players, finally giving everyone access to Warzone and hopefully holding Activision’s legal team at bay.
Next: How Modern Warfare’s Battle Royale Can Improve On Blackout
Sources: TorrentFreak, Reddit
