The adult industry is rather diverse but there is a technology company has a rather large footprint – Mindgeek.
The company, formerly known as Manwin, owns one of the most visited adult websites, Pornhub, and is also the driving force behind YouPorn, Redtube, Tube8, Xtube, and dozens of other sites.
Many of these tube sites became big by offering access to a wide variety of content, some of it posted without permission. However, that doesn’t mean that Mindgeek is turning a blind eye to pirates. On the contrary.
Mindgeek’s imperium also includes companies that own the rights to video content. MG Premium, for example, which owns thousands of copyrighted adult videos, is the driving force behind popular brands such as Brazzers and Digital Playground. These videos are often pirated and shared through external sites, which is a problem for the company.
To address this issue, Mindgeek’s daughter company regularly goes to court. Last week, it requested three DMCA subpoenas targeting the video-hosting services Tapecontent.net, Netu.tv and Gounlimited.to.
The proposed subpoenas are not directed at these sites but at Cloudflare, which acts as a third-party intermediary. MG Premium hopes that the CDN provider can help to expose the personal details of the people who shared its videos, providing hundreds of URLs that point to infringing content.
Specifically, MG Premium wants Cloudflare to hand over all documents and account records that can identify persons or entities that caused the infringements or who unlawfully uploaded the content. This includes names, email addresses, IP addresses, user history, telephone numbers, and any other identifying information.
While Cloudflare generally doesn’t know who uploaders at external sites are, the request appears to be broad enough to also cover the site owners themselves. MG Premium may want to use that information for possible follow-up legal actions.
“The purpose of the DMCA Subpoena is to obtain information sufficient to identify alleged infringers who, without authorization from MG, posted material to the webpage GoUnlimited.to, which infringed copyrights held by MG. The information received as a result of the Subpoena will only be used by MG to protect its rights under Title 17 of the United States Code,” MG Premium informs the court.
According to data from SimilarWeb the three sites all have a decent audience. With over 23 million monthly visits, Gounlimited.to is the biggest target.
Court records don’t indicate that the subpoenas have been granted but that’s generally not the main stumbling block. DMCA subpoenas only require a stamp from the court clerk. Whether Cloudflare has any information that can help MG Premium is another question.
This is not the first time that the company has gone after sites where pirated content is posted and has requested similar subpoenas in the past. In addition, MG Premium has gone after individual BitTorrent users, requesting financial settlements.
Earlier this year the company also took direct action against two allegedly pirating sites. The company filed a lawsuit against YesPornPlease and VShare.io in a Washington federal court, after which both sites disappeared.
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Here are copies of the DMCA subpoena requests targeting Tapecontent.net, Netu.tv and Gounlimited.to respectively.
