Yahoo News ‘Normal People’ Producers to Pornhub: Stop Letting People Steal Our Sex Scenes!
Since its debut last month, Hulu’s adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People has been praised for its steamy sex scenes. The series follows a fraught romantic relationship between Marianne and Connell over several years, beginning when they are in high school. Later episodes of the series also depict Marianne’s exploration of BDSM. Given all this, it should perhaps come as no surprise that someone ripped off the show’s more erotic sequences and posted them on Pornhub—but producers for the series are, nonetheless, less than pleased.
According to Variety, a 22-minute compilation of the show’s erotic sequences appeared on the pornography website last week—and although Pornhub has removed it, the reel has already popped up elsewhere. Normal People producer Ed Guiney told the trade, “We’re hugely disappointed that excerpts from the series of Normal People have been used in this way. It’s both a violation of copyright and more importantly, it’s deeply disrespectful to the actors involved and to the wider creative team.”
Pornhub Vice President Corey Price, meanwhile, told Variety, “Pornhub is fully compliant with the law. We respect all copyright requests, and as soon as we become aware of the existence of these types of videos on our site, we have them removed.”
As Variety points out, this practice is far from uncommon. Series like HBO’s Game of Thrones have struggled with the same thing during their own runs, and while legitimate websites typically comply with takedown requests like Guiney’s, others do not always acquiesce so easily. During GoT’s run, Pornhub released statistics regarding the popularity of various search terms related to the series. A quick search on Pornhub at the time of writing reveals users have posted clips and compilations purportedly from series including Nurse Jackie, Girls, Shameless, Insecure, Euphoria, The Great, You, and more.
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