Disney Seeks Reddit and Google Help to Unmask Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Leaker
At the beginning of this year, a massive leak of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) upcoming movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, surfaced on the Marvel Studios Spoilers subreddit. A user named MSSmods posted a 63-page Google Doc transcript of the movie’s dialogue, leaving Disney eager to identify the leaker.
TorrentFreak was the first to report that Disney’s MVL Film Finance unit, which supports Marvel Studios productions, filed two Digital Millennium Copyright Act subpoena applications to Reddit and Google. The applications aim to uncover who was responsible for the leak by identifying any associated IP addresses, names, telephone numbers, and any other related information.
As the MSSmods account is shared among the moderators of r/MarvelStudiosSpoilers, Reddit would have to identify more than one person to comply with Disney’s application. However, Reddit has not stated if it intends to comply with Disney’s request. A Reddit spokesperson said, “Reddit is committed to protecting our users’ privacy. We have rigorous processes in place to assess legal requests and object when appropriate.” Google did not provide an immediate response to comment requests.
It is uncertain what action Disney will take against the source of the leak, which could have been a freelance translator or a subtitle vendor. The document that MSSmods shared was a Portuguese subtitle translation of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, with some of the dialogue not presented in chronological order.
Marvel Studios has always been very secretive about its upcoming productions. It’s understandable why Disney is taking this matter seriously and pursuing legal action. Leaks like this can ruin the surprise and impact of a movie and result in significant financial losses. It will be interesting to see how Reddit and Google respond to Disney’s requests and whether the identity of the leaker(s) will be uncovered.
