Mindgeek, the powerhouse behind adult entertainment brands like Pornhub, Reality Kings, Brazzers, and Digital Playground, has taken legal action against pirate site PornEZ.

The company has filed a copyright complaint in a California federal court, alleging that PornEZ ignored over 19,500 DMCA notices and pretended to comply with US law.

The lawsuit seeks $117 million in damages, despite estimates suggesting that PornEZ could have potentially cost MG over $275 million per month in lost subscriptions.

The adult industry has long played a significant role in the growth of the early internet, but concerns about accessibility to adult content, especially for children, have led many countries to call for strict online restrictions. Tube sites, in particular, have become a major issue.

Once despised by the adult industry for hosting pirated content, these sites are now owned by corporations that finance, produce, and distribute their own adult entertainment. However, they find themselves battling against “illegal” tube sites that follow the old model of not paying for any content.

On January 18, 2023, Mindgeek filed a copyright complaint against PornEZ.net, alleging that the pirate site conducted business in the United States. PornEZ boasted an average of 27.6 million monthly visits in late 2022, with nearly 22% of its visitors coming from the US. The complaint highlighted the site’s connections to US-based social media platforms and search engines. Mindgeek argued that PornEZ’s claim of compliance with the DMCA was false, as it systematically refused to comply with takedown notices.

Mindgeek discovered that 7,818 of its copyrighted works were available on PornEZ via 51,375 URLs in December 2022. Despite submitting 19,586 DMCA notices to remove 116,757 infringements, the pirate site remained non-compliant.

Additionally, PornEZ failed to register as a service provider at the United States Copyright Office, meaning it couldn’t benefit from the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA.

Mindgeek’s complaint requests a broad injunction and statutory damages totaling $150,000 for each infringed work, amounting to a staggering $117,270,000 in total damages. The company argues that PornEZ’s actions were willful, malicious, and part of a sustained commercial enterprise. They seek a permanent injunction, the transfer of the PornEZ.net domain, and the termination of services provided by Cloudflare and Namecheap.

This legal battle between Mindgeek and PornEZ underscores the ongoing struggle in the adult industry to protect copyright and combat piracy. The outcome of this lawsuit could have significant implications for the industry as it grapples with the challenges posed by online piracy and tube sites.