When the trailer for the upcoming Marvel blockbuster Avengers: Age of Ultron was leaked a week ahead of its release, the studio appeared lighthearted – they tweeted a wry “Dammit, Hydra”, referencing the villainous organisation that the film’s heroes fight against.
But that good humour belied an angry reaction to the leak, which Marvel are now determined to the get to the bottom of: they’ve demanded that Google hand over details of a Google user called “John Gazelle” who they believe illegally uploaded the file, and a US judge has complied with the request.
Google must now bring “all identifying information for the user ‘John Gazelle’” to a San Francisco court on 18 November, including “the IP address from which the file named ‘ap-tlr-l_int_360p.mp4’ and containing content known as Avengers: Age of Ultron was uploaded to the Google Drive Site” – the IP address will help locate where the file was uploaded from.
In posting the trailer to YouTube – potentially after accessing the video from within Marvel or parent company Disney – the user scuppered a carefully planned launch by Marvel. They were to premiere the hugely anticipated video during an ad break in the Marvel TV show Agents of SHIELD, but were forced to upload the full HD version much sooner. It has since been viewed 56m times on YouTube.
Earlier this year, fellow studio Lionsgate also successfully subpoenaed Google for information about sites that hosted illegal downloads of The Expendables 3.
