if pornhub buys tumblr while the deals pending ill take all my art off this godforsaken site and yall should too bc their company has a policy that legally owns whatever work you upload to it

after the nsfw ban awhile back pornhub was encouraging artists to post their digital art to their site because it was ~welcomed~ and everyone then found out their tos/agreement is a nightmare and they basically own everything on their sites owned by mindgeek and could do what they wanted with your art/potentially profit off of it. also, again, i do not want my art associated with a porn company. at all.

obviously a deal hasn’t been made yet, but the company is very openly wanting to buy tumblr and if that happens i’m removing all my art from this website, and depending on any changes they make i’ll likely just leave the site completely. i for one was enjoying the nsfw ban and less bots…….

WOW i didn’t expect my personal post as a heads up if i start removing my art in the future to blow up but YEAH thank u! mindgeek is super fucking shady and notorious for stealing and exploiting content and dmcas are a nightmare that end up doxxing everyone that tries to take down their content and it’s overall definitely not a company i’d like my (entirely sfw!) art to be associated with, let alone possibly have the rights to. i’ve had a lot of art theft already, and i don’t need it to be more difficult.

androdragynous

okay so, holy fuck, i expected that post to get maybe 10 likes tops from some mutuals on my art blog when i typed it up on mobile before bed, and i was surprised to see it gain so much attention and additions. i’ve been trying to keep it updated with further clarification, but i hit post limit from running on queue and my comments in the replies keep getting buried under misinfo and people panicking. here’s a breakdown on why i, personally, will not be having my art on a platform owned by pornhub.

so, here’s what i meant in the original post. the ToS everyone signs is pretty standard for image and content hosting sites. most social media and art websites have similar sounding ToS that people get scared of. the ToS, as i and other people in the post have clarified, does not give the company your copyright. i meant that the company legally owns the right to host your content. every site has this. deviantart got a shitton of backlash from people misinterpreting it. it is, theoretically, harmless.the problem is even if the company does not legally own your copyright or you don’t allow them to sell your work, that’s not the only way they profit off of you. users, traffic, and advertising are how they specifically profit off your content. remember how tumblr was supposed to allow you to earn money from ads on your blog when they implemented it and then you didn’t? the more traffic a site gets the higher its net worth grows (for eventual sale) and the more advertisers will flock to it. the more activity the more revenue. this is why the spam and porn bot problem is so rampant, it earns the site money. it’s why they won’t take down nazis and pedophiles, they need users. basically, tumblr was already profiting off your traffic and following. this isn’t really news.

if pornhub buys tumblr they want to lift the nsfw ban, which, while i’m not against adult content on the platform and the nsfw ban fucked over sex workers who relied on this site, please remember the reason it was put in place was because of the rampant child pornography and pedophiles on this site. when tumblr was removed from the app store, their profits tanked. allowing nsfw content back on the site will generate more porn bots linking back to porn sites. when a bot links a site to your post it fools google’s algorithm into thinking it’s more legit.

pornhub’s parent company, mindgeek, owns a LOT of porn sites and brands. they’ve been growing a monopoly on internet porn for years, and those spam bots are going to be in the company’s best interest profitwise by linking to their sites and again, generating traffic across their platforms.

again, monopolies and companies profiting off your content aren’t anything new. however, mindgeek and pornhub are notorious for content theft, which in order to get removed from their site involves a DMCA which, is standard, but for sex workers it is extremely dangerous because it shows the copyright holder’s personal identification, effectively doxxing the owner to the person who reposted their content. i, personally, have had serious problems with this in the past with my art on tumblr. in my time posting my art on this site a man has reuploaded and masturbated to my sfw animal art and repeatedly harassed me and other artists across multiple platforms. i was a minor at the time and his method of stalking and threatening artists was by posting their information when they filed DMCAs against his reposts. he preyed on children and it resulted in him getting away with mass art theft. this is what happened under yahoo and verizon, both before and after the nsfw ban. this is what you can expect with your work.

mindgeek has been changing sex workers’ contracts. mindgeek has been forcing sex workers into more and more dangerous work. mindgeek has a stranglehold on the porn industry, involved in over 100 sites. sex workers are being put at risk, exploited, and have had their work stolen and profited off of with very little compensation under their company. i encourage you all to look more into this and the company’s ToS yourselves.

so, with mindgeek being evil, now we get into datamining. more and more restrictions on selling user data have been stripped away, getting worse and worse stateside. luckily, the EU required websites to be transparent about it, except only to EU users. tumblr has been mining and selling your data to a number of companies for years, and now we have a list of them. if mindgeek purchases tumblr they own all the data they have collected on you. mindgeek also already collects data on its users, in an attempt by the UK to stop them from allowing minors to consume adult content. what happens if the company decides to sell this extremely sensitive information they’ve already been collecting on users (if they haven’t already)? people could potentially lose their jobs. more sex workers will be fucked over.

tumblr and mindgeek both have extensive histories of being shady as all fuck and having poor moderation. it shouldn’t be difficult to comprehend why a porn company acquiring a large userbase of minors, a porn company with teen porn categories on their site, a porn company that datamines your information, combined with a website that already had a thriving pedophile community and has already been selling your information is a very bad idea. people post pictures of themselves, of their families, of their children, minors post pictures of themselves and their information, the thought of a porn site possessing this content is terrifying.

ToS often change when companies change hands. tumblr has been passed around like a hot potato when companies realize that they have difficulty monetizing it. if tumblr is bought by pornhub/mindgeek, they could change their ToS to have a stronger hold on your content and right to profit off of it when they decide to squeeze all the money they can out of their userbase.

tumblr is not your friend. pornhub is not your friend. corporations are not your friends. any time people bring up pornhub’s shitty business all they have to do is make a viral post about them being ~woke~ and everyone’s fooled. pornhub lied about the snowplowing stunt. US companies are not required to disclose the companies they sell your data to to their US users. companies often strengthen their right to user content and add in sneaky ToS updates as quietly as possible.

please take a moment to protect yourself, your data, and your work if this happens. the sale is not official. there are no benefits to the userbase if mindgeek acquires tumblr. please consider that, even if best case scenario and the ToS doesn’t get worse, that your web presence and your work can still be exploited for profit, perfectly legally, without you signing away your copyright.

i did not sign up to a porn site. i did not sign up to a mindgeek company. i did not sign up to have my work associated with a porn company. if tumblr is officially bought by mindgeek i will be removing my art immediately and likely deleting my main blog afterwards. i do not want to take any chances, i do not want my content or activity to give this company revenue after all they have done and could do in the future. we as consumers have to be more careful about our data and content, and the companies we choose to support. you have to decide where you want to draw a line. i do not want my art associated with mindgeek.



[added on behalf of @plaguerightsactivist​ / @blogsneaks​ due to post limit]