Pornography and adult content law
Two very different groups of people come to us about adult content. Some own an adult website, a subscription platform or a production business and want to stay on the right side of the law. Others have found sexual images or videos of themselves online that they never agreed to, or no longer agree to, and want them gone. We act for both, and this article sends you straight to the help that fits your situation.
If you own an adult website or make adult content
The biggest change for adult businesses is that UK law now requires a proper age check before anyone can see pornographic content, and Ofcom is fining sites that have not put one in place. That duty has applied since 17 January 2025 to sites that publish their own content, and since 25 July 2025 to sites where users upload it, under Part 5 of the Online Safety Act 2023. It reaches sites based outside the UK if they have UK users. Ofcom can fine up to £18 million or 10 per cent of worldwide revenue, whichever is greater, and it has an enforcement programme aimed at adult sites.
Alongside compliance, most adult businesses need the same core documents: terms that protect the platform, consent and release forms that will hold up if a performer challenges them later, and a plan for when a creator is targeted online. These guides cover each one:
- Adult website lawyers: setting up and operating an adult site, the age check rules and what to do when Ofcom writes
- Age verification for adult websites: who the age check duty covers, which checks Ofcom accepts, and the records to keep
- Terms and conditions for adult platforms: what your terms need to say to protect the business
- Is a release form by porn film actor valid: performer consent, and when a release form can be challenged
- OnlyFans harassment legal support and advice: protecting your identity as a creator and stopping stalkers and harassers
If your account has been taken over or shut down, our legal support for influencers covers getting it back.
If intimate content of you is online
In most cases we can get sexual images or videos of you taken down, including films you once agreed to make. A release form you signed years ago does not always give the producer the right to keep publishing, and a website that shows an intimate image of you without your consent is on weak ground once a solicitor writes to it. Usually a letter from us does the job, and quickly. Court is the fallback, not the starting point.
The criminal law is on your side too. Sharing an intimate image of someone without their consent, or threatening to share it, has been an offence since 31 January 2024 under section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and that includes images that only appear to show you. Since 6 February 2026 it has also been an offence to create a fake sexual image of an adult without their consent, or to ask someone else to make one, under section 66E and section 66F of the same Act.
Pick the guide that matches what has happened to you:
- Remove porn images and videos from the internet: how we get content taken down from adult sites, search results and file-sharing sites
- Remove porn films from the internet: when your films have spread across many sites
- Regret over porn film: you agreed to the filming at the time and now want it gone
- Privacy injunction to remove a porn video: when a publisher refuses and a court order is needed
- Sexual coercion and pornography: you were pressured or forced into making the content
- Revenge porn legal advice: an ex-partner or someone else has shared intimate images of you
- How to remove revenge porn from the internet: the practical steps to take now
- Sexual blackmail and sextortion: someone is threatening to share images unless you pay or do what they say
A release form signed years ago is not the end of the story. In many cases it does not give anyone the right to keep your film online.
Cases we have handled
A man who had been homeless was paid £180 to appear in a film, then begged the maker not to publish it. The video stayed online for nearly three years and reached almost 200,000 views. Our investigators traced the anonymous operator behind the site to a home in Essex, where he turned out to be a headteacher. He took down the client's videos and paid him compensation, and once the story was published he took his whole site offline, which removed the videos of hundreds of other men with it. The full account is in the case of Mario Rogers, the porn headmaster.
A mother who had been pressured into adult films as a young woman, in a language she did not read well, feared her films would reach her employer and her child. We challenged the release agreements she had signed with four production companies in the UK and abroad and secured her control over most of the content, so it could come down and stay down. Read the removal of old online adult content case study.
Frequently asked questions
Can a porn video of me be removed if I signed a release form?
In many cases, yes. A release form can be challenged if you were pressured or misled, or did not understand what you signed. The website showing the film also needs a valid right to publish it, passed down from whoever made it. We start by asking the publisher to show that right, and many cannot.
Is it a crime to share intimate images of me without my consent?
Yes. Since 31 January 2024 it has been an offence under section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to share an intimate image of someone without their consent, or to threaten to. You can report it to the police, and we can work on getting the content taken down at the same time.
Someone has made a fake sexual image of me. Is that illegal?
Yes. Since 6 February 2026, creating a fake intimate image of an adult without their consent, or asking someone else to create one, is an offence under sections 66E and 66F of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Sharing the fake, or threatening to, is also covered by section 66B.
Does the UK age check law apply to my adult website if my company is abroad?
It does if the site has links with the UK, which means a significant number of UK users or the UK being one of its target markets. Where the company is registered makes no difference, and most of the sites Ofcom has fined so far are based outside the UK.
Do I have to go to court to get content removed?
Usually not. In most cases a letter from us to the website, the host or the person who posted it does the job, and quickly. A court order is the fallback when someone refuses.
