In June 2022, influencer Corinna Kopf launched an OnlyFans account that saw her enter the top 0.01% of all creators on the website within hours. In fact, Corinna – who is best known for her YouTube vlogs following her life and streaming while playing video games – has become so popular on the platform that her earnings reportedly range from £535,000 (what she'd call 'a bad month') to £1.8m per month.
However, almost immediately after Corinna Kopek's OnlyFans account launched, some of those who bought the $19.99 monthly subscription to her account began leaking Corinna's content for free on social media. As a result, instead of Corinna earning money for the content that she was creating, people began searching ‘Corinna Kopf leaked reddit’ and ‘Corinna Kopf OnlyFans leaked’ in order to get access to her pictures for free.
And it didn't end there. Underneath all of Corinna’s social media posts promoting her OnlyFans, followers still reply with promises that they will share images stolen from her account – with some even going as far as to post them on Twitter.
Now, it should be noted that not all influencers who create an OnlyFans are posting explicit or sexualized content necessarily - but in Corinna's case, captions on her images include sexualised language and promises of 'sexy' and topless pictures, so it's fair to say the images shared likely fall in line with the explicit OnlyFans content.
After her supposed fans continued to post her explicit images for free despite her requests for them to stop, in 2021 Corinna threatened to take legal action against the people leaking her OnlyFans content, posting in her OnlyFans bio 'The copyright of the material contained on my OnlyFans page is owned by Corinna Kopf. You do NOT have permission to redistribute, post, use, copy, reproduce, print, or play any of my material outside of my OnlyFans page. Failure to comply with this WILL result in legal action taken against the person whose information you used to sign up with.'
According to the OnlyFans website, all content posted by creators is copyrighted and creators have the option to watermark their images automatically on the website. It is against their Terms of Service to reproduce, distribute or republish material on the website, meaning any users who were found to would be banned from the site.
‘OnlyFans takes content piracy very seriously,’ their policy reads. ‘Our designated Copyright team issues formal takedown notices against all reported copyright violations [and] issues notices on all illicit target websites, hosting services, and domain registrars, while also notifying all major search engines of these infringements.’
That certainly means she has a legal case, at least according to Emily McFadden, abuse lawyer at Bolt Burdon Kemp. It wouldn't be for revenge porn, she explains, but there could be a case for copyright infringement.
'In order to be found guilty of an image-based sexual abuse offence in the UK, a person must be found to have shared private sexual materials of another person, without their consent, and with the purpose of causing embarrassment or distress,' Emily explains. 'It is unlikely that users publishing these images would be considered to have done so with the purpose of causing embarrassment or distress.
'However, users of OnlyFans who circulate the images more widely may be in breach of UK copyright laws, as they are have not received permission to republish the images from her, as the creator of the image. This may leave them vulnerable to Kopf potentially suing them for breach of copyright.'
But regardless of whether Corinna takes legal action or not, what's clear is that she shouldn’t have to be dealing with these kind of leaks in the first place.
Creating an OnlyFans can be a risk for anyone, career wise but also emotionally. Given the stigma around sex work - of which OnlyFans is so heavily associated regardless of whether you’re posting explicit content or not – it’s more than likely certain companies will avoid working with someone who has a big platform on OnlyFans. We’re not saying that’s right, of course, but it is unfortunately true.
More than that though, women who create OnlyFans have recently been opening up about feeling misled by the popular narrative that it’s an easy side-hustle even those unfamiliar with virtual sex work should take advantage of (it most certainly is not easy) - and that is purely empowering to be a part of. While that may be the case for some, others have pushed back on that – explaining that delving into this world can be extremely emotionally taxing, often having to deal with demanding, misogynistic men, and detail feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to create more extreme or explicit content (a rabbit hole very easy to fall down when manipulation and money align).
It’s no small feat then for Corinna Kopf to dive into this world - and may well be why she didn't create an OnlyFans until two years ago, despite followers begging her to for years. For her to answer those calls then only to find her content stolen and distributed for free is awful.
Corinna has only consented to her OnlyFans images being seen by paying customers.
Beyond that, it’s exploitative. Corinna created her OnlyFans content in the context that it will be paid for, only shared with customers willing to compensate her for her time, energy and creative output. Stealing said content and posting it for free not only undermines her work then, but also the fact that she only consented to those images being seen when they were paid for. It is revenge porn by another name.
It speaks to one of many issues at the heart of pornography and virtual sex work: the fact that women are constantly exploited by people who refuse to pay for their content. It’s why so many people take issue with Pornhub being free, because when pornographic content is free online, the actors involved are being exploited in some form.
And yet so many people refuse to see or acknowledge that because of the way in which it benefits the patriarchy for women’s bodies to be consistently disrespected, and their sexual agency stigmatized. The (largely) men profiting off of free porn certainly aren’t going to change the status quo, nor are the (largely) men enjoying it being so easily accessible for free.
The irony is, women are shamed for being involved in sex work, stigmatized for expecting to be paid for it, yet men will consume their content for free in excess – unphased by the fact that the very woman they enjoy watching is being exploited by their actions. And the same goes for the people sharing, or simply searching for Corinna Kopf’s leaked OnlyFans images.
After wanting Corinna to create an OnlyFans for so long, followers should be gagging for the opportunity to pay for her content. Instead, they immediately undermine her and perpetuate a culture where women are consistently taken advantage of and cannot remotely benefit from a patriarchal system that has sold their bodies as objects.
Stealing someone’s OnlyFans content is objectification in its finest form, using Corinna’s images as a tool for others to enjoy while ignoring the fact she did not consent to them being shared outside OnlyFans nor to non-paying customers. So for everyone searching ‘Corinna Kopf leaked OnlyFans’, just know – you’re the very reason women like Corinna, that you so desperately want to see naked, avoid creating that content. You’re also breaking the law so you might want to stop that...
Georgia Aspinall is Features Editor at Grazia UK. An award-winning writer, she covers women's interest stories across politics, health, dating, travel and pop culture.