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MindGeek is one of the leading players in the adult entertainment industry.

Formerly known as Manwin, MindGeek conquered the online adult market over the past decade by offering free porn to the masses.

The Copyright Switch

With help from user-uploaded videos, the company created massive databases of adult entertainment, much to the frustration of incumbent adult industry companies that often found pirated copies of their content on the site.

This bold business model paid off with billions of visits that provided a sizable revenue stream through sites such as Pornhub, YouPorn, Redtube, Tube8, Xtube, and dozens of others. And as MindGeek’s stature rose, it also transformed into a major rightsholder itself.

This imperium also includes a lot of copyrighted content. MindGeek subsidiary MG Premium, for example, owns brands including Brazzers and has more than 10,000 works registered at the US copyright office which it actively protects.

MindGeek’s subsidiary regularly files lawsuits against ‘pirate’ tube sites and users of peer-to-peer networks . The most impressive numbers come from its DMCA takedown campaign, which has been ramping up for over a decade.

121 Million URLs Since January

At the time of writing, MG Premium is the most prolific sender of DMCA notices to Google, according to the search giant’s transparency report. Since January this year, the adult company asked the search engine to remove more than 121 million allegedly infringing URLs.

MindGeek’s subsidiary officially began sending takedown notices in 2014 and since then has submitted well over half a billion links; 561,222,215 to be precise.

These numbers make MG Premium the copyright holder behind most DMCA notices to Google overall. The company reported nearly twice as many notices as the runner-up, anime publisher Viz Media. Music Group BPI reported slightly more URLs but it represents multiple rightsholders.

~60% Removal Rate

Not all reported URLs were removed from Google’s search results. The totals also include duplicates and URLs that were not indexed. For 1.6% of the links, Google decided not to take action, which suggests that no infringing content was found. This remaining 60.% was indeed removed, which translates to 327 million URLs

MindGeek also received DMCA notices for its own platforms. However, on PornHub, this number went down dramatically after the site started to verify uploaders.

All in all, it’s intriguing to see how MindGeek managed to transform itself from a company that was scolded for copyright infringement to one that protects (its own) copyrights at all costs.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Pornhub is without a doubt one of the most visited adult entertainment outlets on the Internet.

The ‘entertainment’ platform is owned by MindGeek, the company formerly known as Manwin. In just a few years it has transformed the adult industry’s pay-to-access model into an all-you-can-eat, free-to-stream business.

Part of this magic formula is down to Pornhub and other MindGeek-owned tube sites allowing users to upload content. This material includes legitimate videos but also quite a few pirated versions too.

DMCA-Protected Flywheel

These videos drove millions of visitors to the site, which also helped to draw in even more uploaders. This flywheel kept spinning and spinning with help from the DMCA, which shields Pornhub from copyright liability.

Over the years, complaints from porn rightsholders increased alongside pressure from credit card companies calling for a ban on ‘offensive’ material. Then the authorities expressed increasing concern over potentially abusive content on the site.

Pornhub worked hard to weather the storm by implementing upload filters, manual content checks, and by processing hundreds of thousands of takedown requests. But despite all this effort, Pornhub could not prevent the floodgates from opening in late 2020.

“The Children of Pornhub”

In an opinion piece titled “The Children of Pornhub,” the New York Times shone a light on the dark side of the tube site.

The piece made an impact on people around the world, including billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who piled pressure on Pornhub payment providers Visa and Mastercard.

While Pornhub thrives on free content, FT recently documented that its operations are heavily intertwined with the credit card companies, who help to process many millions in ad revenue. So, when Visa and Mastercard suspended these payments, MindGeek’s flagship was destined to go down.

The Purge

Faced with potentially imminent demise, in December 2020 Pornhub responded by taking down millions of videos. The goal was to prevent anything exploitive, including child pornography, from ever appearing on the platform. To support this commitment, content uploaders would have to be verified going forward.

Pornhub’s decision wasn’t so much about copyright but verification inadvertently became one of the Internet’s most effective ‘anti-piracy’ interventions.

The copyright infringement implications have not been reported publicly by PornHub but data shows a significant impact. When TorrentFreak compared Pornhub’s most recent transparency report with the one issued a year earlier, we found a massive uploader verification effect on piracy complaints.

DMCA Takedowns ‘Vanish’

In 2020, PornHub removed 544,021 pieces of content in response to DMCA notices. That’s a significant number, even when considering that Pornhub hosted close to 14 million videos at the time.

A large chunk of these videos were removed when the site went ‘verified-only’. Roughly four million videos survived the purge and many more were re-added when verified. As a result of this process, DMCA removals tanked.

In 2021, Pornhub removed just 8,547 pieces of content in response to DMCA notices, a historic drop of more than 98% year-over-year.

The Holy Verification Grail?

Aside from the obvious conclusion that it’s good to see Pornhub tackling child exploitation and other types of abuse, this saga might just plant a seed with copyright holders. Apparently, uploader verification is a very effective anti-piracy tool.

Pornhub had been dealing with DMCA complaints for many years. It spent serious effort and resources building a dedicated takedown team. Then, after flipping on the verification switch, all problems suddenly vanished.

This is both impressive and scary, depending on your perspective. While many copyright holders dream of uploader “verification” checks on YouTube, for example, the prospect of mandatory ‘Internet passports’ give others nightmares.

It is hard to tell whether Pornhub’s data will lead to anything new. However, the adult entertainment industry is often the first to implement new ideas and technologies, whether it’s related to online streaming, payment processing, or virtual reality. And user verification too, perhaps.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Mindgeek is without doubt one of the largest and most powerful adult entertainment conglomerates in existence today.

The company effectively transformed the porn industry in less than a decade, luring people in with a promise of ‘free’ content. Mindgeek owns Pornhub, one of the most visited websites on the Internet, and is also the driving force behind YouPorn, RedTube, Tube8, Xtube, and dozens of other sites.

Several of these tube sites became big by offering access to a wide variety of content, including pirated videos that were posted by their users without permission. That doesn’t mean that MindGeek is turning a blind eye to pirates. On the contrary.

MindGeek’s current empire includes companies that create video content and own the rights. MG Premium, for example, has many thousands of copyrighted adult videos in its repertoire under popular brands such as Brazzers, Digital Playground, MOFOS, and Reality Kings. These videos are often pirated and shared through external sites, presenting a problem for the company.

MindGeek Sues Daftsex and Artporn

To address this issue, MindGeek’s daughter company regularly goes to court. In a recent case, filed at the federal court in the District of Washington, Vasily Kharchenko, the alleged operator of Daftsex.com and Artporn.com, stands accused of mass copyright infringement.

These sites have been a thorn in MindGeek’s side for years but targeting their domains with hundreds of thousands of DMCA takedown notices didn’t produce the desired result. So, in 2020, MindGeek obtained a DMCA subpoena against Cloudflare to unmask their operator. This quest eventually led to Kharchenko.

MG Premium alleges that the operator personally uploaded 2,143 of its copyrighted works to the sites. Through the court, the company hopes to stop these infringements. In addition, the company demands compensation for the damages suffered.

Thus far, the lawsuit has been a one-sided battle, as Kharchenko didn’t respond to the allegations at all. This prompted MG Premium to request a default judgment, asking for $15,000 in damages per infringement, for a total of $32,145,000.

Injuction Targets Verisign, Cloudflare, Namecheap and others

In addition, MG Premium also moved for a broad injunction that would require various third-party online services to cut their ties with the infringing sites and their alleged operator. The adult company believes that would help to shut down the piracy operation.

In addition to DaftSex and Artporn, the proposed injunction also includes Biqle.com and Daxab.com. The latter is a CDN for streaming videos, which is used by DaftSex and others. All these sites are allegedly run by Kharchenko.

Verisign, the registry responsible for .com, .net, .cc, and .tv domain names, is one of the third-party services mentioned in the proposed injunction. MindGeek wants Verisign to disable the Daftsex.com, Artsporn.com, Daxab.com, and Biqle.com domains and transfer them to the porn conglomerate.

In addition, other domain name companies, hosting, and CDN providers should be compelled to cut their ties with the sites in question. Those companies include Cloudflare, FDC Servers, Namecheap.com, NameSilo and PrivacyGuardian.org.

An order of this magnitude would be very effective indeed, but the court had its reservations. Despite the fact that the accused failed to appear in court, United States District Judge Benjamin Settle denied the injunction.

Injuction Denied, For Now

According to the Judge, MG Premium should provide more details about the contacts between the defendant and the third-party services, in order to justify such a “sweeping” order.

“The Court is not prepared to issue a sweeping injunction against numerous nonparties based only on the conclusory, unsupported allegation that Vasily Kharchenko is in privity with them, or on the implausible claim that Kharchenko controls these entities,” Judge Settle writes .

This means that MG Premium must go back to the drawing board and submit a new motion for a default judgment, supported by additional evidence and analysis.

If the company eventually gets its way this could spell trouble for other pirate sites as well. In any case, it will be interesting to see how the case develops and what the potential aftermath might be.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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