AMSTERDAM — An Amsterdam court on Wednesday ordered the Cyprus-based xHamster to either obtain consent from every Netherlands-based amateur model featured on videos posted on the site or else remove them.
According to the ruling, xHamster has three weeks starting April 12 to remove all videos with amateur images of people living in the Netherlands unless it can provide proof that those people gave their explicit permission.
Amateur images of persons who do not live in the country must be made inaccessible in the Netherlands within the same three weeks unless explicit permission can be ascertained.
The judgment by the District Court of Amsterdam follows complaints made by the local non-profit. Expertise Bureau for Online Child Abuse (EOKM).
EOKM released a statement celebrating the ruling and noting that according to the Dutch court xHamster “may only continue to publish non-professional nude images if it has the permission of all persons appearing in the picture.”
The group hailed the decision as “a victory for the rights and privacy of victims whose nude images were published without demonstrable consent.”
EOKM had previously succeeded in court last year in its action against the Dutch site Vagina.nl. The courts had ruled that it was unlawful to publish amateur images “unless the operator has ascertained that everyone in the image consents to publication.”
Last week’s decision confirms the previous ruling, but also establishes a precedent of jurisdiction for platforms located outside the Netherlands whose content can be accessed through the internet.
EOKM Director Arda Gerkens said, “I am pleased that the court has confirmed once again that this type of amateur footage cannot simply be placed online. The distribution of nude images in this way must be stopped, and all porn sites play a role in that.”
Gerkens added that EOJM “will certainly consider taking further steps against other porn sites that publish, or have published, images without explicit permission, with recognizable persons performing sexual acts in private.”
EOKM’s lawyer Hanna van Til, of the Boekx Law Firm, stated that “after this verdict, xHamster and other operators can no longer look the other way.” Her colleague Otto Volgant called the verdict “a historic ruling with major consequences for the entire porn industry” and added that it is time that the porn industry self-regulate and no longer offered videos online without the participants’ permission.