Anti-piracy company Denuvo is asking a U.S. court to help it find out who it is suing. In a new filing in its case against the anonymous game cracker known as voices38, Denuvo asked for permission to subpoena Discord, Valve, and Reddit for information that could identify the person, as first reported by TorrentFreak.
Denuvo, which is owned by Irdeto, filed a DMCA anti-circumvention lawsuit last month in federal court in California. The complaint accuses voices38 of bypassing Denuvo’s Anti-Tamper protection on 26 games. According to VGC, the list includes Resident Evil Requiem, Stellar Blade, Black Myth: Wukong, 007 First Light, Pragmata, Hogwarts Legacy, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Mafia: The Old Country, Doom: The Dark Ages, and Dead Space Remastered. The complaint couldn’t name the defendant. It listed a Discord user ID, a Reddit account, and seven Steam profiles instead.
The new ex parte motion asks the court for early discovery “solely to determine Defendant’s true identity.” Denuvo says it first approached the three companies directly. Valve and Reddit said their privacy policies prevent them from sharing user data without legal process, and Discord didn’t reply.
The proposed subpoenas are detailed. From Valve, Denuvo wants registration data, names, and billing addresses for the seven Steam accounts, along with payment methods, transaction histories, timestamped IP addresses, device identifiers, and linked accounts. From Discord, it wants account data, including the servers the account belongs to and the roles it holds there. From Reddit, it wants every post and comment by voices38 and the account’s subreddit memberships. A declaration filed with the motion also says Denuvo traced cryptocurrency transactions by the cracker on the exchange FixedFloat, though it doesn’t explain how they were linked or ask to subpoena the exchange.
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. has not yet ruled on the request. The case may already be having an effect: TorrentFreak notes that DenuvOwO, a group that released bypasses for dozens of Denuvo games, reportedly disbanded late last month, and no new voices38 releases have appeared since the lawsuit was filed.
Denuvo remains a sore spot for many PC players, who worry about its effect on performance, and some publishers drop it after launch. Capcom did exactly that last month, as RCG reported when Dragon’s Dogma 2 dropped Denuvo on PC.
