Pornstar DMCA: Submitting Takedown Requests To Google

Submitting DMCA Takedown Notices To Google

If you’re a performer in the adult industry, you know how big of an issue capped shows and stolen clips is. Not only does it cut into the performer’s revenue, but also makes concepts like geoblocking much less effective. Luckily, there’s tactics pornstars can use to fight piracy. DMCA take-down notices sent directly to the site is the most practiced method. But not all websites are receptive to DMCA. Especially the foreign sites that don’t need to honor Western intellectual property laws. When that happens, one must result to other means. Submitting DMCA takedown notices to Google is a logical next step. Here’s what you need to know.

First: Let’s Google Your Name

First, do a Google search for your own stage-name. Also do a search for your name plus different keywords attached; dildo, girl/girl, anal, cosplay, whatever fetishes you cater to. Also do a search with keywords like; free, recorded, video, ect attached to your name. Be sure to check out main search, video search and image search.

How many results with stolen content came up? That is why submitting DMCA takedown requests to Google is so important. Now let’s get those bad search results removed!

Google Is The Main Source Of Most Pirate’s Traffic

In most cases, Google is the main source of most pirate traffic. This includes the main search, photo search and video search. A lot of pirates are also SEOs (Search Engine Optimization Specialists). They might also be knowledgeable in other marketing channels. But being that Google organic search is the best performing source of traffic in every single industry, it’s safe to assume that Google search is their main focus.

Because of this, taking out the search engine rankings is the easiest way to harm the various pirate sites. Sure, it won’t remove the content itself, but it’s the next-best thing to do to soften the effect that pirated content has on you and your bottom line. There’s other routes you can take to further combat piracy mentioned at the end of this post.

How To Submit DMCA Takedown Notices To Google

Getting content removed from Google is easy and fairly straight forward. Simply follow the instructions on this form. Because we’re trying to remove the content from Google Search, we’ll be selecting Web Search from the options. If there’s a piracy problem on other Google products, such as YouTube, Blogger, Gmail and a wide range of other options, this form can also be used to get content removed from them as well.

On the next page, there will be a series of options available to choose from. For a DMCA takedown notice, choose I have a legal issue that is not mentioned above. The form will then display more options. Choose I have found content that may violate my copyright. The form will bring up some additional information and two more options. Choose Yes, I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on the copyright owner’s behalf. Google will ask if the product is image/video or other. Choose Other.

Google will then bring you to another form. This is where you describe the infringed material, give locations where Google can see examples of the infringed upon material (your clip store, chatroom, ect) and the urls where the infringed upon material is being illegally hosted. You’ll also have to provide some additional information. There is a major privacy concern here, elaborated upon below, but models have had success using their stage-name instead of real name!

Here’s how Google says you should fill out the form:

In the “Identify and describe the copyrighted work” box, please give us a detailed description of the work in question. If possible, provide an example or sample of the work that is allegedly being copied.

In the “Where can we see an authorized example of the work?” box, please give us the URL address of the work in an authorised location. This will be used by our team to verify that the work appears on the pages that you are asking us to remove. Please tell us if the work is not available online.

In the “Location of the allegedly infringing material” box, please identify the URL addresses of the content to be removed.

Privacy Concerns With DMCA Takedown Notices

As mentioned above, there’s some serious privacy concerns with Google takedown notices. All notices will be included in the Lumen Database (with some information redacted). The Lumen Database documents, analyzes and studies all complaints for online content removals. This data is meant for everyone to better understand the legal issues and threats that surround the online world.

Also, have you ever seen this at the bottom of a search result page:

In response to multiple complaints we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 5 results from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaints that caused the removals at LumenDatabase.org: Complaint, Complaint, Complaint.

The links (that aren’t hyperlinked in the example above) will link to the DMCA complaint sent to Google. With some basic information on the person who submitted the complaint. This is a major privacy concern for models.

Models Have Had Success Using Their Stage-Names

FOR THAT REASON, NEVER USE YOUR REAL NAME! I’ve talked to a handful of models who have had success filing these complaints under their stage names. Granted, these girls all have “fictitious first and last names” and not something more “screen-nameish” like LittleRedBunny, for example.

Also be sure to use an address and phone number that’s not yours. It’s cheap and easy to get a number with a different area code that you can use. If you can use someone else’s mailing address (that you know and trust with your life, of course) in a different state, that would be optimal. Otherwise, you can always get a PO Box in a different town for a reasonable rate.

Alternatively (and optimally) your camming site might include notices to Google in their DMCA services, outlined below.

Some Networks May Submit Takedown Notices On Your Behalf

Many camming and clip sites offer in-house DMCA services. These services might only include DMCA takedown requests to the webmaster in violation. A handful go above and beyond and will submit notices to Google on their model’s behalf as well. If this is the reality, it’s the most optimal route to go. That is because your contact information is not included on the takedown request. It’ll be the network’s contact information instead.

In order for the network to be able to report the content, it had to be something featured on their site. If it’s a stolen clip, that clip must be featured on the network submitting the DMCA complaint. For example, if it’s a stolen clip, that clip must be available for sale on the clip store submitting the request. If it’s a capped camming show, that show must have been performed on the camming site submitting the DMCA request. If you’re cam-splitting between multiple sites, that might be a very gray area, and any of the sites you’re splitting to *MIGHT* be able to submit the notice.

To see whether DMCA is offered by your network, reach out to their support channels. Also inquire if they submit DMCA to the webmasters directly, to Google, other search engines, and to the web hosts of pirate sites. If they do support all the above, I’d highly recommend leveraging all those services, in order to do the most damage possible.

DMCA Agencies Can Also Submit Takedown Notices

There are many DMCA agencies that provide services to models. These agencies use advanced tactics to find stolen content. They’ll also submit all sorts of DMCA services for models. Many of these agencies also have a couple additional tricks up their sleeves that can be used when DMCA is not an option. These services come with a price-tag, but most agencies are insanely proactive and effective.

Important Note: Google DMCA Doesn’t Remove The Actual Content

It’s important to realize that this process doesn’t remove the actual content from the website. It only removes it from Google. This is still a great step to be taken, and greatly impacts your bottom-line. Not going to name any names, but in the process of developing all of our DMCA content, we talked to a lot of people in the industry. One of the major mainstream porn producers (multiple sites under their umbrella) stated that they attributed a 7-figure increase in net revenue that they attributed to a massive Google DMCA campaign they deployed.

That is either a million, or millions. 7-figures in net revenue attributed to getting search results featuring their pirated content. Granted, comparing mainstream to camming is apples and oranges. But that gives you an idea of how much of an impact piracy has on the industry and how valuable taking back organic search engine traffic can be.

DMCA Complaints Also Reduces Site-Wide Google Rankings

Google has also indicated that the number of DMCA complaints against a specific domain hurts their site-wide rankings. Google doesn’t indicate how big of an impact it has. Nor do they indicate whether it’s tiered (penalty after 100, then a bigger penalty at 1,00, ect) or whether each undisputed DMCA complaint has a minor impact. They just acknowledge that it’s part of the algorithm.

More Ways Pornstars Can Fight Piracy