Discord Is Feuding With a Video Game Company That Wants to Unmask Users

Discord, a messaging platform that is not exactly notorious for protecting its users’ privacy, has apparently finally gotten fed up with a South Korean video game maker that’s trying to root out alleged copyright infringers on the platform and has for months been shielding some of those accounts’ identities.

In a court filing first reported by TorrentFreak, Nexon Korea Corporation claims that since May Discord has failed to respond to a federal court’s subpoena ordering the platform to provide information sufficient to identify users behind allegedly infringing posts. According to Nexon’s filing, Discord’s attorneys have argued in correspondence between the two companies that the subpoena is overbroad and improperly requires Discord to act as another company’s copyright enforcer.

Nexon Korea is behind video games like MapleStory, MapleStory2, Sudden Attack, The Kingdom of the Winds, Dungeon & Fighter, Grand Chase, and Elsword. It requested and received the subpoena from a federal court in Texas under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

This is not the first time Nexon has targeted Discord posts with DMCA takedown notices, according to a letter from Discord’s attorneys included in the Nexon filing. The attorneys wrote that Discord had previously responded to an “overly broad and unduly burdensome subpoena” issued in October 2023 and turned over information related to 64 of its users.

“We produced that information to your firm on June 13, 2024,” Discord’s attorneys, with the Texas law firm Haltom & Doan, wrote in the letter. “Now, you appear to be demanding additional information for yet more User IDs, which you allege infringe one of the same copyrights you have already asserted. You are attempting to renegotiate a deal that has already been struck and fulfilled. Your actions are improper. Discord is committed to fulfilling its obligations under the law, but acting as your copyright assertion partner is not one of them.”

In the letter, Discord’s attorneys wrote that they were prepared to file a motion asking the court to quash the subpoena, but Nexon claims that Discord hasn’t done so in a timely manner. The game maker has asked the court to order Discord to comply with the order and turn over identifying information about the “wanted infringer[s].”