Warner Bros. Discovery has been using DMCA copyright takedowns to remove posts on social media that contained just discussions about the first episode of the HBO series Lanterns, a report by Puck said.
The posts in question didn’t contain any leaked stills or footage from the show – just people’s comments about a major plot twist revealed in the first episode, which had previously been rumored and reported on by some outlets.
The series, a DC one co-created by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King, premiered on Sunday, and its final moments delivered a shocking fate for one of the show’s characters.
Cosmic Book News (this link contains spoilers for Lanterns), an independent pop-culture site run by editor Matt McGloin, had spent months piecing the twist together from casting, promotional footage, and the show’s timeline; by March, McGloin was predicting the ending outright.
Warner Bros. was not happy about this, and went on to use copyright law to remove posts on X, YouTube, and Facebook. The first takedowns happened on July 10, two weeks before Comic-Con, when an anonymous Reddit post claimed to reveal the twist, and it spread to X. An HBO Max social strategist then filed a takedown notice covering six posts from five accounts, including Cosmic Book News, describing the infringement as “people discussing the spoilers of the first episode of Lanterns.”
Another Warner Bros. Discovery employee filed a second notice, while MarkScan, an outside vendor, struck a 67-second Cosmic Book News video on YouTube. Facebook removed the same video after a third-party complaint that did not name the complainant.
The takedowns had real-world consequences for McGloin, who was not only unable to manage his site’s 666,000-follower Facebook page for 30 days (a period that includes Comic-Con, where the site was credentialed to cover Warner Bros.’ Hall H presentation), but also had his X account locked temporarily. McGloin says his social accounts get as many as 40 million views a month.
“The takedowns cut me off from a large portion of my audience during the biggest week of the year; affected my ability to report on Comic-Con, Lanterns, and all the related news; and hurt my bottom line,” McGloin told Puck.
Warner Bros. chose not to comment for the report, but a source explained that the company weighs several factors before filing DMCA notices, including whether a title is released yet. Copyright law protects original expression in a work, not the idea or plot itself – so someone describing it or reporting what happens in it cannot be violating copyright.
Warner Bros. has no plans to take the issue to court – the takedowns have already done the job, keeping the reveal obscured until the episode actually aired. McGloin is now considering his legal options.
