Brazzers (, company name: MG Premium Ltd.) is a Canadian

pornographic Pornography (colloquially called porn or porno) is sexually suggestive material, such as a picture, video, text, or audio, intended for sexual arousal. Made for consumption by adults, pornographic depictions have evolved from cave paintings ...

video production and distributing company headquartered in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, and legal domicile in Nicosia, Cyprus. With an online network consisting of thirty-one

hardcore pornography Hardcore pornography or hardcore porn is pornography that features detailed depictions of sexual organs or sexual acts such as sexual intercourse, vaginal, anal sex, anal, oral sex, oral, or Non-penetrative sex#Manual sex, manual intercourse; e ...

websites, the company's slogan is "World's Best HD Porn Site!" and features paid

subscription The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century. It ...

-based content. As of December 2020, the company features 2,340 different models and publishes across 31 different sites.

History

Founded in 2004 by a group of Montreal investors, Brazzers became part of a larger group of pornographic sites under the corporate name of Mansef, which combined the names of founders Stephane Manos and brothers Sam and Hassan Youssef. The name, "Brazzers", was a humorous mispronunciation of the word, "brothers". In 2010, Mansef was sold to Fabian Thylmann and rebranded as Manwin Inc. In December 2012, Thylmann was extradited from Belgium to Germany on suspicion of

tax evasion Tax evasion or tax fraud is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to red ...

. In October 2013, Thylmann sold Manwin's assets, including Brazzers, to an internal management group,

MindGeek Aylo is a Canadian multinational Pornography, pornographic Media conglomerate, conglomerate owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners. It is primarily involved in internet pornography, operating a number of video sharing web ...

. In 2014, Brazzers celebrated its 10th anniversary with a billboard in

Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and Neighborhoods in New York City, neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway (Manhattan), ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. The digital billboard was located at the corner of 47th and 7th and viewable for the entire month of August. In 2010, Brazzers had used a Times Square billboard to promote its

safe sex Safe sex is sexual activity using methods or contraceptive devices (such as condoms) to reduce the risk of transmitting or acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), especially HIV. "Safe sex" is also sometimes referred to as safer ...

campaign and to announce its "Get Rubber!" slogan and website. In September 2016, the data breach monitoring website Vigilante.pw alerted the media to a database breach suffered by Brazzers, which affected almost 1 million users after the site was hacked in April 2013.

Operations

Brazzers is owned and operated by

Aylo Aylo is a Canadian multinational pornographic conglomerate owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners. It is primarily involved in internet pornography, operating a number of video sharing websites (including platforms su ...

, a multinational officially registered in Luxembourg. The company was formerly known as MindGeek. Brazzers came under industry criticism for associating with

streaming media Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a Computer network, network for playback using a Media player (disambiguation), media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of Network packet, packets from a Server (computing), ...

sites like

Pornhub Pornhub is a Canadian-owned Internet pornography video-sharing website, one of several owned by adult entertainment conglomerate Aylo. , Pornhub is the 16th- most-visited website in the world and the most-visited adult website. The site al ...

. In response, in 2009 the company initiated an anti-piracy campaign.

Litigation

In 2008, after being fired, producer Bobby Manila sued Brazzers for fraud and violation of the terms of his contract. The lawsuit was eventually settled. In February 2010, Pink Visual Studio sued Brazzers' parent company, Manwin, for copyright infringement by distributing unlicensed video content on its free video-sharing sites. Brazzers' network has been accused of benefiting from unlicensed content by indirectly benefiting from traffic from sharing sites, but this was the first time a well-known studio had filed a lawsuit. A

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was considered by other studios. In 2018, the Government of India banned Brazzers, among other porn websites, after an order from the

Uttarakhand High Court The Uttarakhand High Court is the High courts of India, High Court of the States and union territories of India, state of Uttarakhand in India. The Uttarakhand High Court was established on 9 November 2000 after the separation of the state of ...

demanding the same in a rape case where the perpetrators stated they were motivated to do so after watching online pornography.

Ranking

As of July 2021, Brazzers.com has an Alexa traffic ranking of 3,576.

References

External links

* * * {{Pornographic video digital distribution platforms Aylo Internet properties established in 2005 Canadian erotica and pornography websites Film production companies of Canada Canadian pornographic film studios Mass media companies of Cyprus Companies based in Montreal Companies based in Nicosia Video production companies Internet censorship in India