OnlyFans Creator Sues Thothub, Cloudfare, Chaturbate & BangBros

On Monday, an OnlyFans creator named Deniece Waidhofer filed a lawsuit against “leaked content” site Thothub.tv and 21 users of the site alleging “violations of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), Copyright Act, and other torts.”

The complaint also names Cloudfare, which according to the complaint “contracts with Thothub to provide content delivery and security services” for the site, as well as BangBros and Chaturbate, which the complaint describes as “two of Thothub’s most prolific paid advertisers.”

Waidhofer’s complaint summarizes her use of Patreon and OnlyFans (the “Licensed Sites”) and efforts to promote and sell her content through the two platforms, describing her as “one of the most successful creators on the Licensed Sites” and stating that “her earnings place her among the top 1% of all creators on OnlyFans.” The conduct of the defendants, Waidhofer contends, is undermining that success.

“Thothub and the Members—with the material support of the other Defendants—caused Waidhofer’s content to be stolen from the Licensed Sites and unlawfully published on Thothub,” the complaint states. “After being published on Thothub and downloaded by many of its one-million-plus members, Waidhofer’s published and unpublished works have been widely disseminated across the Internet and seen by millions of people. This has caused, and continues to cause, personal, reputational, and monetary harm to Waidhofer.”

The complaint goes into detail about how Thothub operates, including quoting statements published on the site that certainly sound like a clear inducement for the site’s users to violate copyright.

According to Waidhofer, a managing member of the site, who goes by “Captain Thotcakes”, states in a pinned moderator message “We are looking exclusively for PAID material/ LEAKED photos and vids / PREMIUM content. (Stuff that’s not easily available to the public / or is locked behind the paywall / subscription) Examples: Patreon, Onlyfans… stuff like that.”

“Most of the content that appears on Thothub is material that was scraped from behind the paywalls of the Licensed Sites,” the complaint continues. “This content is only supposed to be available to paid subscribers through the Licensed Sites. Thothub’s primary purpose—its raison d’etre—is to steal this exclusive, behind-thepaywall content from the Licensed Sites and unlawfully distribute it to millions of its associates.”

As for Cloudfare, the complaint terms the company “a co-conspirator of Thothub that aids and abets Thothub’s criminal activity.”

“Cloudflare contracts with Thothub to provide content delivery and security services for Thothub,” Waidhofer alleges in her complaint. “In this role, Cloudflare makes unauthorized copies of creators’ stolen copyrighted works on its computer systems and optimizes Thothub’s display of infringing works throughout the United States and worldwide, directly and indirectly infringing and contributing materially to Thothub’s unlawful use of creators’ works, including Waidhofer’s works.”

The complaint further alleges that Cloudfare “also acts as a lookout man for Thothub, masking Thothub’s true identity and server locations.”

“This prevents creators from effectively enforcing their rights against Thothub,” the complaint continues. “This is a major selling point for Cloudflare. Cloudflare’s permissive approach to repeat infringement, and its willingness to pretend it can do nothing to stop the repeat infringement, is highly attractive for pirates like Thothub.”

In arguing for liability on the part of Chaturbate and BangBros, the complaint states that as “major players in the online adult content industry, the Advertiser Defendants know, and cannot reasonably avoid knowing, that Thothub is a pirate site.”

“Despite knowing that Thothub routinely and systematically engages in copyright infringement, the Advertiser Defendants provide material assistance by paying to advertise on Thothub, which enables Thothub to cover the costly webhosting and content delivery fees it incurs in distributing terabytes upon terabytes of stolen content to millions of users,” Waidhofer asserts in her complaint. “The Advertiser Defendants’ willful cooperation with Thothub drives sales for their own sites while directly undermining their top competition by causing the leaking of creators’ works. In exchange for the financial support, Thothub does not publish content stolen from the Advertiser Defendants. The Advertiser Defendants are parties to the RICO conspiracy and liable for the harm it causes.”

Copyright litigation is a complicated business and outcomes are difficult to predict. That said, when it comes to the “Advertiser Defendants” – BangBros and Chaturbate – Waidhofer may have a hard time making her claims stick.

In a decision rendered by the same court (the Central District of California) in 2016, ALS Scan, Inc. v. Cloudflare, Inc., et al, the court found that the relevant case law imposes a very high burden for contributory copyright violation and related torts. In dismissing the claims brought against Tiger Media Inc. (which operates JuicyAds) in the case, the court held that the complaint against Tiger failed “to plausibly allege a link between Tiger’s advertising brokerage services and the infringing conduct of the Publishers.”

In comments given to VICE, representatives for both BangBros and Chaturbate said that third parties were responsible for their ads being placed on Thothub. In Chaturbate’s case, they say it was an advertiser participating in their referral marketing program. BangBros said their ads were placed by a third-party ad network – an entity similar to JuicyAds, in other words.

None of this is to say Waidhofer’s claims against BangBros and Chaturbate are doomed to fail. For starters, Waidhofer’s claims are different from those in the ALS case; she’s alleging a civil RICO conspiracy, where ALS’ claims centered on copyright and trademark claims.

As the complaint was filed just three days ago, none of the defendants has submitted a response to Waidhofer’s claims. YNOT will continue to follow the case and report on future developments.