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HBO has obtained a DMCA subpoena, ordering X Corp. to identify the person behind a Euphoria fan account that allegedly posted spoilers from unaired episodes of Season 3. The action comes just days before the show's long-awaited premiere this weekend, but it remains unclear what the company plans to do with the requested information.

HBO has a history of being plagued by high-profile leaks.

Several Game of Thrones episodes leaked in the past, and the same applies to the sequel, House of the Dragon.

With the long-awaited third season of HBO’s hit series Euphoria coming up this weekend, the company was on high alert. So, when it saw several ‘spoilers’ being posted by an X account operating under the name “Lexi howard’s cat”, it wasted no time to take action.

Not the infringing tweet

The Lexi-inspired fan account has been around for a long time, sharing various Euphoria-related updates. However, a series of posts that were published in late March appeared to have hit too close to home.

On March 31, HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) sent a takedown notice to X, flagging several posts. According to Michael Bentkover, WBD’s Director of Worldwide Online Enforcement, these were “spoilers for unaired episodes of our Euphoria TV Series”.

TorrentFreak was unable to find out what was posted exactly, but the DMCA notice identifies it as video/audiovisual recording.

The DMCA notice

X confirmed receipt on the same day and presumably removed the posts. However, that was not the end of it. A week later, on April 7, the company requested a DMCA subpoena at a California federal court, with the goal to identify the person behind the @maudesfancat account.

DMCA subpoenas are relatively easy to obtain, as they only require a court clerk to sign off, which indeed happened a day later.

The issued subpoena requires X to share information sufficient to identify the person behind the account. This includes names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, account numbers, IP addresses, and any other contact or billing records held by the platform.

The signed subpoena

Unlike the DMCA notice, where WBD used “video” to describe the content, the declaration to the court by Michael Bentkover classifies the infringing content as “summaries of unpublished, character, setting, and plots of a forthcoming series”.

This distinction may matter, as a summary of a plot may not enjoy the same protection as a leaked video. Copyright generally protects the expression of a work, not the underlying ideas or plot descriptions.

Then again, Bentkover also states that the user in question “posted access to HBO’s unpublished, copyright protected work from its forthcoming series,” which sounds substantial.

For now, X Corp. has until April 23 to respond. Legally, both X and the account holder can challenge the subpoena, but no objections have been submitted in court yet. Meanwhile, the ‘Lexi howard’s cat’ account is no longer online.

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A copy of the subpoena, filed April 8 at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is available here (pdf). The notice of filing and supporting declaration can be found here (pdf).