Intellectual Property Rights In Pornographic Content Creation: Are Your Onlyfans Your Only Fans?

Abstract

This Article examines how platforms such as OnlyFans have transformed pornographic content creation and complicated the legal landscape for online sex workers. The COVID-19 pandemic, remote work, unemployment, celebrity influence, and shifting cultural attitudes toward sex work contributed to a dramatic increase in the use of subscription-based adult content platforms. At the same time, emerging technologies, including cryptocurrency, Web3, NFTs, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, have reshaped how pornographic content is created, monetized, distributed, and exploited. This Article argues that the growth of online sex work raises urgent intellectual property, privacy, and safety concerns that should not be dismissed because of the stigma surrounding sex work. Content creators face copyright infringement, unauthorized distribution, fake profiles, deepfakes, harassment, cyberstalking, privacy breaches, and exploitation, while existing platform protections and legal remedies remain incomplete. The Article further considers how AI and blockchain-based technologies may both empower creators and create new vulnerabilities. This Article calls for a more serious legal response to online sex work, one that recognizes pornographic content as protectable creative labor. Ensuring safe online sex work requires culturally competent legal representation, stronger education about intellectual property rights, thoughtful information policy for AI, and legal reforms that protect creators without undermining free expression or the safety of trafficking victims.