As new company owner Solomon Friedman vows to reform the platform and create a safer and more sustainable online model for its users, DeVille reflected on Pornhub’s history of content theft that has ravaged the incomes of hardworking content creators since its 2007 launch.
“It was an absolute disaster for the porn industry; their entire business model, like Napster back in the day, was to steal,” she told Lieberman of the streaming site’s ill-gotten gains off the backs of performers. “The first time Pornhub came to AVN, people spat on them.”
“Luckily Pornhub has completely changed their business model, as well as ownership, and under their new management they now demand industry-leading age verification, as well as in-depth model releases, and have turned into a safe place for performers to ethically sell and distribute our art.”
DeVille, the face of Pornhub’s notification alerts that pop up in states where the site is restricted due to age verification laws, has discussed Pornhub’s reverberating influence on creators in other interviews, most notably for the Netflix documentary Money Shot: The Pornhub Story, as well as a first-person editorial for Rolling Stone, where she asserts:
“The problem is that the war on Pornhub is a proxy war to take down the entire legal sex work industry… Money Shot wasn’t perfect, but it will stream on a major platform, where it will further dent the false narrative about the porn industry. I’m ultimately grateful I spoke in Money Shot. And I won’t stop speaking up.”
To read the Washington Post article in full, visit WashingtonPost.com.
