Genshin leakers to be unmasked after court order overrules X’s privacy defence

In a long court case battle between X (formerly Twitter) and Cognosphere, a subsidiary of MiHoYo, the courts have ruled that X must reveal the four identities of those leaking Genshin Impact information on the social media platform.

The California court ruled that, despite the U.S Bill of Rights First Amendment, which pertains to the freedom of speech, and California’s right to privacy concerns, X must comply with Cognosphere’s request for information about the anonymous accounts on X who are leaking Genshin Impact information as they are breaching copyright (H/T Stephen Totilo).

The initial subpoena was submitted in 2023 and only requested the information for four high-profile Genshin leak pages: HutaoLoverGI, GIHutaoLover, HutaoLover77, and FurinaaLover. These accounts, which were once bustling hubs for leaked Genshin content, have been removed or suspended on X.

We all know leaks are a big part of the Genshin community; players want to know everything they can before it’s officially revealed, like which characters are being released, what new content might be arriving, whose banners might be up next, and details of new events. However, obtaining this information comes at a hefty cost because companies like MiHoYo are beginning to view leaks obtained from Genshin‘s test builds as copyright violations.

This isn’t the first time MiHoYo’s gone after Genshin leakers either. In January 2023, MiYoHo flagged several Genshin leakers in two well-known Genshin Discord servers, Genshin Leakers’ Group and House of Daena. The claim then was the same: These members were violating copyright.

One of the biggest actions, outside of the ongoing situation with X, was to the former Genshin leaker UBatcha. Although they’re still active on social media and have a whopping 400,000 plus following on the social media platform, they no longer post leaks after receiving an infringement notice. Now, they post content mostly around Honkai: Star Rail.

While MiHoYo’s actions may seem extreme, the company does have the right to request its leaked information be removed if someone obtained it by violating copyright.

Genshin isn’t the only place leaking issues have flared up either, with MiHoYo’s recent moves against the dataminers just the last in a long line. Some of the biggest clap backs against leakers in the gaming sphere across the years have been:

• In 2019, Epic sued a tester for leaking Fortnite Chapter Two.
• In 2023, Nintendo attempted to sue a Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom artbook leaker.
• In 2023, Ubisoft took legal action against leakers over Avatar, Far Cry 7, and Rainbow Six Siege info as well as the Ubisoft Plus release window for Xbox.

So, if you’ve ever thought about creating social media accounts to leak datamined or leaked gaming info, this may be your sign to rethink your plan or suffer the consequences.