LOS ANGELES—In what is either much ado about nothing or a sign of something far more nefarious, it was alleged in a post to GFY today by JT of Really Useful Cash that adult tube site XVideos.com is allegedly showing uploaders a statement that makes new demands of them. Specifically, it says they must agree to never remove uploaded content, or else have their content channel deleted.
[UPDATE—In an email sent to AVN Thursday morning in response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for XVideos wrote, "We'll give you an appropriate answer later today and everything will be clear." XVideos has also posted up on GFY, on page two of the original thread started by JT.]
JT posted the statement to GFY, and also sent AVN a screen shot (pictured) of the statement as it allegedly appears on XVideos.com. It reads, "All actions will be locked until you either accept or reject these terms : Due to recent events we have to request the following: all the videos you upload under your account will remain on XVIDEOS and you renounce the right to request them to be deleted. Accepting this will allow you to update your account and upload again. Rejecting this will cause your channel and all your videos to be deleted."
In his GFY post, JT claims of the message, "Xvideos are forcing you to give up your copyright, give them perpetual rights and ownership over every clip you have ever uploaded to them via their CPP. You lose complete control over YOUR content and this is NOT something you should be doing. You never know what is going to happen in the future, and what is on the imminent horizon for content owners in this industry."
In a follow-up email to AVN, JT, who was formerly involved at YouPorn.com, reiterated his claim, explaining, "By renouncing your right to have them deleted, in effect means that you [cannot] DMCA them to remove the clips, because you have denounced your rights to those clips. It means that those clips, forever, belong to xvideos."
When queried whether an attorney had confirmed that conclusion for him, JT replied, "My lawyer has advised to not click 'I accept.'"
In response to a question whether he had in fact instigated the XVideos message by requesting last week that some videos of his be taken down, he responded, "Yes, this change is a direct result of me requesting to have all of my official FakeTaxi.com clips removed because of the exclusive deal I have signed with Mindgeek. Whilst xvideos complied with my wish, they were 'very disturbed by this strategy."
He added, "As a direct result of the xvideos announcement, this afternoon I have been in discussion with some of the biggest studios in this industry and we are coming together to fight for our rights. I would ask for any studio that is interested in joining this alliance, to email me directly at [email protected]."
He also wanted to deliver the following message to other content owners. "Check your brand name SERPs," he advised. "They dominate all of the major brands and direct the user to an xvideos channel, with a lot of content but with minimal advertising for the content owner. A lot of other big tube sites do a lot more to appease content owners."
In later posts on GFY, JT repeats his claim, writing, "Its a [maneuver] by Xvideos to counteract my request last week to them (and other major tubes) to have all of my FakeTaxi.com clips removed from their site because I have signed an exclusive deal on FakeTaxi.com with Pornhub network."
But mid-afternoon he also indicated that legal action may be forthcoming against XVideos for their latest action, posting, "Well, looks like I am going to have to legally challenge Xvideos on this because I have just been told that one of my up loaders clicked on accept for the MassageRooms.com account earlier today, and he didn't even bother to read what was written. So, according to xvideos announcement, they now have full ownership of all videos ever uploaded to that account, forever."
AVN has reached out to XVideos for comment and is also seeking legal input regarding the copyright ramifications of the XVideos statement.
