Marvel is seeking the identities of Reddit and Google users involved in the leak of dialogue from Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Marvel says that before the Ant-Man film's release, movie dialogue was leaked in a Google Docs file and that the link to the document was posted in a Reddit thread.

Marvel on Friday asked a federal court to issue Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) subpoenas to both Reddit and Google demanding the identities of people allegedly involved in the pre-release dialogue reveal, including Reddit moderators whom Marvel suspects of being behind the leak. The requests were filed in US District Court for the Northern District of California.

The Google document was deleted after Marvel owner Disney filed a copyright complaint to Google. The link to the Google document was also deleted from the Reddit thread. But Marvel still wants to find out who posted the Google Doc and who shared it to Reddit.

The new subpoena requests come amid a different battle in the same court between Reddit and several film studios over whether Reddit should have to identify users who posted comments in piracy-related threads. Reddit is fighting those demands for users' identifying information.

In this case, Marvel is trying to get the names of users including those behind the Reddit account MSSmods, which is a shared account for the moderators of the Marvel Studios Spoilers subreddit. The subpoena request points to a January 2023 Reddit thread that originally linked to the Google Docs file containing Ant-Man movie dialogue. Users discuss the leaked dialogue in the Reddit thread, with some calling it among the biggest movie leaks ever or the biggest leak in the subreddit's history.

Marvel wants names, numbers, addresses, and more

An Internet Archive capture of the Reddit thread shows that a user with the screen name "Vision" kicked it off by linking to the Google Docs file. The initial post said the leak was based on a subtitle file in another language that was translated into English.

The link was apparently removed the same day the thread began. "As we have discovered that the info provided to us is receiving copyright notices, any future sharing of the material will result in a ban for rule 3," a moderator wrote in a stickied comment.

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The subpoena request filed by Marvel subsidiary MVL Film Finance seeks information "to identify the individual(s) alleged to be responsible for the unauthorized posting of the then-unreleased dialogue of the motion picture 'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania'" to the Reddit thread that included the Google Doc link.

"The purpose for which the DMCA Subpoena is sought is to obtain the identity of an alleged infringer (or infringers) and such information will only be used for the purpose of protecting MVL's rights under title 17 U.S.C. §§ 100, et seq," said a sworn declaration filed by Marvel Studios VP of Global Security and Content Protection Matthew Slatoff.

Marvel is asking for users' names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and IP addresses. If Reddit has to comply, it might have to provide identifying details on numerous users. The subpoena request seeks the following details from Reddit:

1. All Identifying Information for the user "u/MSSmods."
2. All Identifying Information for any other user(s) responsible for posting, editing, and/or maintaining the content previously available on the Reddit Site (along with user "u/MSSmods," the "Infringing Users"), including, without limitation, any moderator of the MarvelStudioSpoilers subreddit involved in uploading content on or about January 20, 2023 to the Reddit Site comprising and/or related to the dialogue of then-unreleased motion picture "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" (the "Infringing Content").
3. All Identifying Information for any user involved, between January 15, 2023 and February 15, 2023, in posting and/or editing the Infringing Content.

Reddit “committed to protecting users’ privacy”

As a TorrentFreak article on Marvel's subpoena requests notes, "no infringing content was ever posted to the Reddit thread... The allegedly infringing content was hosted on Google, [and] the thread simply provided a link."

Reddit did not provide a direct answer to the question of whether it will fight Marvel's requests when contacted by Ars today but said it aims to protect users' privacy. "Reddit is committed to protecting our users' privacy. We have rigorous processes in place to assess legal requests and object when appropriate," a Reddit spokesperson told Ars.

Marvel's subpoena to Google seeks the same types of identifying information—real names, usernames, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and IP addresses—for the user or users who posted or edited the document containing movie dialogue. Marvel also wants Google to provide a "report setting forth any and all revisions made" to the document between December 1, 2022, and February 15, 2023, "including any Identifying Information for any user who edited and/or made revisions to any such content, including any IP address(es) associated with any such revisions."

We contacted Google about the subpoena and will update this article if we get any response.

Reddit is owned by Advance Publications, which also owns Ars Technica parent Condé Nast.