Starfield leaker arrested for felony theft after attempting to sell early copies

A pile of Starfield discs sits on a car seat in a video posted by Harris. (credit: Dillan Harris / Streamable)

A Tennessee man has been arrested and charged with a felony after leaking early footage of Bethesda's upcoming Starfield and attempting to sell shrinkwrapped copies days before the game's highly anticipated launch.

According to a Shelby County, Tennessee, arrest record, Darin Harris was booked for felony and misdemeanor counts of theft of property, as well as possession of controlled substances, late on August 24. An incident report obtained by IGN reportedly lists the stolen property in question as "Video Game: Microsoft Starfield unreleased game."

The arrest came days after the YouTube account "DHavenShadow," which apparently belongs to Harris, posted roughly 40 minutes of Starfield gameplay (seemingly captured from a cell phone pointed at a TV) to YouTube and other social media channels on August 22 (a spoiler-free listing for one such video can be seen in this Internet Archive capture). While the video was quickly taken down from YouTube by a ZeniMax Media copyright claim, copies of the same content spread across the Internet quicker than they could be taken down. The footage reportedly got over 1 million views on Imgur alone before being taken down there as well.