Judge Sides With Genshin Impact Maker in Forcing X/Twitter to Reveal Leakers' Identities

X/Twitter will have to comply with a subpeona regarding the identities of several Genshin Impact leaker accounts after a federal judge ruled against the social media platform's attempt to throw it out.

The news comes from Torrent Freak and Stephen Totilo's Game File newsletter, detailing the latest in miHoYo's crackdown on leakers. Cognosphere, the miHoYo-owned publisher of Genshin Impact, filed the subpeona last fall, attempting to force X Corp. to “disclose the identity, including the name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), and e-mail addresses(es)” behind four popular leaker accounts: @HutaoLoverGI, @GIHutaoLover, @HutaoLover77, and @FurinaaLover.

NEW(ish): A court has ruled that X/Twitter must comply with a subpoena issued last fall to unmask the identities of accounts leaking Genshin Impact info

X had raised 1st Amend. and California right of privacy concerns it wanted a court to weigh in onhttps://t.co/euVcwG9w8w pic.twitter.com/YSsPX2p4PI— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) September 23, 2024

As Totilo notes, three of the accounts are currently suspended. The only one that isn't, @furinaalover, has deleted all but one of the posts on their X/Twitter account. According to Torrent Freak's report, Cognosphere believes that one person controlled all four leaker accounts.

In filing the subpeona, Cognosphere argued that the leakers had infringed on its copyright in the publishing of previously unreleased material. X/Twitter, however, attempted to quash the subpeona on First Amendment and privacy grounds, asking the court in a previous filing if Cognosphere's request was “sufficient to satisfy any First Amendment free speech safeguards applicable to the anonymous speakers."

X/Twitter asked for a legal process that would ensure the leakers' First Amendment and privacy rights were not being infinged upon, mantaining "that a Court needs to decide these issues.”

U.S. magistrate judge Peter Kang, however, ruled for the Northern District of California that X/Twitter must comply with Cognosphere's request, saying that there is "no First Amendment right to commit copyright infringement.”

It's only the latest in MiHoYo's handling of leakers. Last February, miHoYo filed a separate subpeona targeting three other other leaker accounts on similar copyright infringement grounds.

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.