Pornhub has taken a strong stance against deepfakes, because the porn site understands that the machine-learning-generated videos that swap out performers’ faces with someone else’s are non-consensual. But a recent lawsuit accuses the company of running a person’s face in an advertisement without their consent.
Photo: Getty
Edward Kelly of Marlton, New Jersey, sued MindGeek, owner of Pornhub, after a friend told him his photo was on the site, according to the Courier Post. In the selfie, Kelly is wearing a slightly sideways Pittsburg Pirates cap and holding up a fan of $US100 notes. The ad copy next to his photo reads: “Make $725/day Like Me” and “See how I get it”.
The lawsuit – originally filed to state court and moved to New Jersey federal court – claims Kelly took and owned the photo of himself. The suit asserts that “Someone on Pornhub’s advertising team found the photo” and used it without Kelly’s consent. The suit claims that the photo has been featured on Pornhub for at least six years, and that people seeing it “could reasonably believe that [Kelly] intentionally consented to Pornhub’s use of his image”.
Pornhub sent Gizmodo a statement from vice president Corey Price: “Although we don’t generally comment on preceding before courts, we would like to clarify that Pornhub did not create the ad in question. Our banner ads are run through third party networks, on which advertisers directly place their content.”
Mindgeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo.
Kelly is suing for more than $US3 million ($4 million) for emotional distress, damage to his reputation, and “infringer’s profits”.