Brazzers (/ˈbræzərz/, company name: MG Premium Ltd.) is a Canadian pornographicvideo production company with headquarters in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and legal domicile in Nicosia, Cyprus. With an online network consisting of thirty-one hardcore pornography websites, the company's slogan is "World's Best HD Porn Site!" As of December 2020, the company features 2,340 different models and publishes across 31 different sites.[2]
Founded in 2005 by a group of Montreal investors, Brazzers became part of a larger group of pornographic sites under the corporate name of Mansef. In 2010, Mansef was sold to Fabian Thylmann and rebranded as Manwin Inc.[3][4] In December 2012, Thylmann was extradited from Belgium to Germany on suspicion of tax evasion.[5]
In October 2013, Thylmann sold Manwin's assets, including Brazzers, to an internal management group, MindGeek.[6]
In 2014, Brazzers celebrated its 10th anniversary with a billboard in Times SquareinNew York City. The digital billboard was located at the corner of 47th and 7th and viewable for the entire month of August.[7] In 2010, Brazzers had used a Times Square billboard to promote its safe sex campaign and to announce its "Get Rubber!" slogan and website.[8]
In September 2016, Vigilante broke the news of a database breach suffered by Brazzers, which affected almost 1 million users after the site was hacked in April 2013.[9][10][11][12][13]
The Brazzers logo changed a number of times between its 2005 founding and 2020, though it consistently featured a yellow and black color scheme with an emphasis on the double z's in the middle of its name.[14]
Brazzers is owned and operated by Aylo, a multinational officially registered in Luxembourg.[15] The company was formerly known as MindGeek.
Brazzers came under industry criticism for associating with streaming media sites like Pornhub. In response, in 2009 the company initiated an anti-piracy campaign.[16]
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.[17]
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 class action lawsuit was considered by other studios.[18]
In 2018, the Government of India banned Brazzers, among other porn websites, after a Uttarakhand High Court court order demanding the same in a rape case where the perpetrators stated they were motivated to do so after watching online pornography.[19]
