MONTREAL — A group of 40 women, including three Canadians, is suing MindGeek, saying the Montreal-founded company behind Pornhub made millions from sex videos published on the site without their consent.

The videos in question, filmed by former MindGeek content partner Girls Do Porn, amount to sex trafficking, the lawsuit alleges. The women further allege that MindGeek knowingly left the videos on the site even after it knew Girls Do Porn “was trafficking its victims by using fraud, coercion, and intimidation as part of its customary business practices to get the women to film the videos.”

The suit alleges that MindGeek, which owns a host of pornography sites and is headquartered in Luxembourg, “has incorporated dozens of subsidiaries for the purpose of avoiding liabilities.” MindGeek chief legal officer Anthony Penhale didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

The lawsuit further alleges that MindGeek’s ostensibly separate corporate entities essentially operate as one, and exist in part to ”hide the identity of the entities and individuals behind its corporate actions.” Neither Feras Antoon nor David Tassillo, MindGeek’s Montreal-based CEO and CFO, respectively, responded to a request for comment.

It seeks more than US$1 million for each plaintiff for compensatory damages, and over US$1 million per plaintiff for punitive damages, as well as “restitution for all monies MindGeek earned marketing, selling and exploiting” videos in which they featured.

The company has faced scrutiny recently after a series of media reports, including a New York Times column published earlier this month that focused on trafficking victims’ stories of having videos of them circulate via MindGeek’s sites. That led Pornhub to impose new measures it said would improve safety and transparency on the site, including limiting video uploads to verified users. 

The Times column prompted Mastercard to announce it would no longer let its payment cards be used with Pornhub, after conducting an investigation, and Visa has halted the use of its cards pending an investigation of its own. While many applauded the measures, some sex workers raised concerns about how the payment companies’ decisions would affect their livelihoods. 

Meanwhile, Heritage Minister Steven Guilbault told The Logic this month the federal government will bring in new regulations in early 2021 to ensure “platforms are respecting our laws and regulations” with respect to harmful online content. “Fines could be imposed in the millions of dollars. We’re not talking about a slap on the wrist.”

According to the lawsuit, filed in a California court Tuesday, Girls Do Porn became a content partner with MindGeek in 2011. Girls Do Porn had a dedicated channel on Pornhub, the popular pornography tube site, in which it promised subscribers “real amateur girls having sex on video for the very first time.” By the fall of 2019, the channel had over 700,000 subscribers, and its 70 videos were viewed nearly 700 million times.

Earlier this year, a California state judge ruled that the Girls Do Porn employees used “deceptive, coercive, and threatening behavior” in the production of the videos. In many cases, the women responded to modelling gigs on Craigslist, only to be be convinced to perform sex acts with promises that the videos wouldn’t be put on the internet. 

Instead, the judge ruled, the videos were uploaded onto Pornhub and, in an attempt to make them go viral, were sent to the “models’ friends, family members, classmates, employers, and social media contacts.”

The lawsuit against MindGeek adds further alleged details to the scheme. “Some of GirlsDoPorn’s videos depict victims who are in visible distress, including, in some instances, bloodstained sheets and condoms. In other videos, tracks of the victim’s tears can be seen in the victim’s makeup—the victim obviously having been in tears while the camera was not rolling or having been edited out by GirlsDoPorn. In some videos, furniture can be seen piled in front of the hotel room door,” it reads.

Brian Holm, one of the attorneys representing the women, told The Logic in October that his clients began petitioning Pornhub to remove the videos in 2015. Many of the women hired third-party “takedown companies,” which sent “hundreds, if not thousands” of requests asking MindGeek to remove the videos, according to the lawsuit.

“That’s what I am trying to explain is that I did not consent to being online!!! :(((( me and other girls are being brutally harassed,” wrote Jane Doe No. 36, a Canadian, in January 2016. She later informed the company that she and her boyfriend were in therapy because of the videos.

Yet the lawsuit alleges the videos remained on Pornhub and other MindGeek-owned sites. “MindGeek simply did not care and continued to partner with GirlsDoPorn until it was no longer profitable because of the indictments and arrests,” reads the lawsuit.

Six people, including Girls Do Porn principals Michael Pratt, Matthew Wolfe and Andre Garcia, were indicted on federal sex trafficking charges in the fall of 2019. In January, a San Diego state court judge found that the three men relied on “deception and coercion” to obtain models’ consent, and awarded the nearly two dozen victims more than US$12.7 million in damages. 

Garcia pled guilty to sex-trafficking charges in January. Both he and Wolfe remain behind bars. Pratt, who was also charged by a grand jury with production of child pornography in January 2019, is currently on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

Pornhub said it removed the videos in question in 2019, following the charges. Yet as The Logic recently reported, some of the Girls Do Porn material was still available as recently as two months ago. It was removed shortly after The Logic brought it to the company’s attention. There is another Canadian connection in the lawsuit. The 43-page document notes that Ottawa-based Shopify powers Pornhub Apparel, which sells Pornhub-branded clothing and sex toys. A Shopify representative didn’t return a request for comment.