Trusted Reviews Donates 1 Million Pounds in Settlement Over Red Dead Redemption 2 Leak

AlphaAtlas

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In February 2018, Trusted Reviews published an article detailing "a number of alleged development notes on Red Dead Redemption 2." Leaks in the gaming industry happen all the time, but Take-Two apparently wasn't happy with that particular leak. Trusted Reviews has since pulled the article, with a formal apology in its place, and Variety reports that they donated "over 1 million pounds to charities chosen by Take-Two Games" as part of a settlement. Successful legal action against an anonymous leak like this is highly unusual. Whatever your opinion Trusted Reviews may be, this could set a worrying precedent for the future.

"On February 6, 2018, we published an article that was sourced from a confidential corporate document," according to the post that hit the site Thursday afternoon. "We should have known this information was confidential and should not have published it. We unreservedly apologise to Take-Two Games and we have undertaken not to repeat such actions again."
 
I will be leaving Take-Two a note about how I'm not going to play their game, when I'm able to order it on Steam.
 
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Company A being punished for publishing confidential data to the public of Company B
Company A gets caught
Company A donates money to charity and avoids any further action from Company B

How is any of this worrying.

Because company A didn't sign an NDA, and have no legal obligation to keep that data confidential?

Like others said, I suppose things do work differently in the UK. But if this means EU or UK game journalists can't safely publish game leaks, that puts them at a serious competetive disadvantage.
 
In February 2018, Trusted Reviews published an article detailing "a number of alleged development notes on Red Dead Redemption 2." Leaks in the gaming industry happen all the time, but Take-Two apparently wasn't happy with that particular leak. Trusted Reviews has since pulled the article, with a formal apology in its place, and Variety reports that they donated "over 1 million pounds to charities chosen by Take-Two Games" as part of a settlement. Successful legal action against an anonymous leak like this is highly unusual. Whatever your opinion Trusted Reviews may be, this could set a worrying precedent for the future.

"On February 6, 2018, we published an article that was sourced from a confidential corporate document," according to the post that hit the site Thursday afternoon. "We should have known this information was confidential and should not have published it. We unreservedly apologise to Take-Two Games and we have undertaken not to repeat such actions again."

I'm just surprised the Crown did not decide to charge them with Hate Speech. I mean, why else would they do this, except that they Hated Red Dead Redemption 2?

/s
 


ruh roh
“On February 6, 2018, we published an article that was sourced from a confidential corporate document,” according to the post that hit the site Thursday afternoon. “We should have known this information was confidential and should not have published it. We unreservedly apologise to Take-Two Games and we have undertaken not to repeat such actions again.”
 
Company A being punished for publishing confidential data to the public of Company B
Company A gets caught
Company A donates money to charity and avoids any further action from Company B

How is any of this worrying.

Because by these rules a publication couldn't publish any kinds of leaks they got their hands on.
That's how investigative journalism works, if you can't publish what you find out, then they might as well only reproduce press releases in news outlets.

By the same standard NVIDIA could've sued [H] for revealing details about GPP, that they very much would've liked to remain confidential from the public.
 
Because company A didn't sign an NDA, and have no legal obligation to keep that data confidential?

Like others said, I suppose things do work differently in the UK. But if this means EU or UK game journalists can't safely publish game leaks, that puts them at a serious competetive disadvantage.

Because by these rules a publication couldn't publish any kinds of leaks they got their hands on.
That's how investigative journalism works, if you can't publish what you find out, then they might as well only reproduce press releases in news outlets.

By the same standard NVIDIA could've sued [H] for revealing details about GPP, that they very much would've liked to remain confidential from the public.

I get what you guys are saying, I do. I guess the mind I have with the job I have says any kind of "leak" in that sense is illegal as it wasn't intended for release by the content owner. Movie leak, album leak, game leak, financial leak, innovation leak etc etc.

I know leaks and letting out secrets is usually the strongest and sometimes only course for identifying or "whistleblowing" another bad behavior or smoke screen. Snowden and Assange as another example. But in the end it is still can be described as an illegal action, if whats leaked is classfied as such. Then you get into fabricated or conveniently timed leaks which can cripple companies/people on top of all of that. Politics a major example.

If the data in this instance for TT was marked confidential in house, then leaked to TR without confidential tag, I agree with your opinions on this is a slippery slope. In reading the article I missed the assumptions involved.

In the end - I still trust absolutely no one to tell me the truth.
 
guys they didnt release content or part of the product early. just some information, that they were under no obligation to keep secret. where is that 1st amendment fire every american should feel?
 
But in the end it is still can be described as an illegal action, if whats leaked is classfied as such.

Well that's just it, this isn't classified government material. Its from the private sector, and as far as I know there's no national security law in the U.S. you can get prosecuted under for publishing RDR2 info that was (figuratively) dropped at your doorstep.
 
If I'm reading this right, they settled out of court so there is no legal precedent here. If I were to guess there must have been some damning stuff Take 2 had on Trusted Reviews or Trusted Reviews concluded that taking this to court would cost more in legal fees than the settlement would cost them in the end. Either way we will never know, but my guess would be on the shady stuff, at least enough for Take 2 to bother with taking them to court.
 
Need to differentiate between whether putting up leaked info for public consumption is being done for consumer/public protection or just to harm the entity which owns the material.

Not doing so by parties concerned weakens the reporting and justice system as can be seen by this thread...
 
No legal precedent, as there were no legal court proceedings. That said, generally you'd go after whoever the source is with your legal muscle, and just admonish the publication a bit about the disclosure of said leak. Only time you should see legal action against a publication is when there is obvious malicious intent and the information is false.
 
guys they didnt release content or part of the product early. just some information, that they were under no obligation to keep secret. where is that 1st amendment fire every american should feel?

Its the rich assholes effect. When you're rich enough you can use the threat of bankruptcy on most people to do whatever you want.
 
Well that's just it, this isn't classified government material. Its from the private sector, and as far as I know there's no national security law in the U.S. you can get prosecuted under for publishing RDR2 info that was (figuratively) dropped at your doorstep.

Just hunch, but this might be something personal. Didn't you guys run an article here about how the take-two brothers got 538 of the 715million RDR2 made ( so far ) , and they are in/from the U.K.?

I mean , the lid was kept on really tight while RDR2 was in development. So much so that most people didn't believe it was being made ( until that leak came out ) .

Can you image the shock and awe impact value if RDR2 was kept totally secret until the day it was announced as 'released'. In this day and age ( of endless cradle to grave coverage of development cycles ) that would have effectively made the game universe revolve around RDR2 for a few singularity minutes and I bet the sales would have broke a billion dollars in the first 3 days easily.

SO perhaps the brothers told an associate in confidence ( nothing formal ) and were not exactly pleased when that person leaked for personal gain?...just a thought .

But, in any case , the U.K. is at least half Socialist/Fascism government wise , and free speech is CERTAINLY NOT a , in practical terms, guaranteed right there.
 
Because company A didn't sign an NDA, and have no legal obligation to keep that data confidential?

Like others said, I suppose things do work differently in the UK. But if this means EU or UK game journalists can't safely publish game leaks, that puts them at a serious competetive disadvantage.
You can't put much stock into a country that has criminalized mean Tweets.
 
You can't put much stock into a country that has criminalized mean Tweets.
I think the most absurd example of the UK's lack of free speech is the guy who got arrested & fined for teaching his girlfriend's pug how to perform illegal paw gestures.
 
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