A number of questions remain in the wake of the site’s closure:

Who owned PornWikiLeaks, and who sold it to Bang Bros.?
Where are the hard drives from?
How much did it cost?
Did Bang Bros., itself a subsidiary of several layers of holding companies, always own PornWikiLeaks, and do this as a publicity stunt?

None of that is clear.

Swedish erotic film director Erika Lust highlighted the good and the potential bad in an email to Business Insider.

“Bang Bros.’ decision to buy the site and remove all of the data was a brilliant move and a sign of solidarity with an industry that is stigmatized and heavily mistreated by society and media outlets. I applaud it. PornWikileaks was a disgusting website that endangered so many performers and other people working in the industry,” Lust said.

“It’s important to be aware, though, that Bang Bros. is part of a big network which is owned by WGCZ S.R.O, which also owns tube sites like XVideos.com and Xnxx.com. Companies like WGCZ S.R.O and the Mindgeek conglomerate, owner of the very famous Pornhub, have achieved a monopoly through backward vertical integration and horizontal integration, by taking over the supply chain and production path of pornography. This has been detrimental and also very harmful to every single player in the industry destroying the livelihoods of performers and creators,” she said.
Bang Bros. representatives did not respond to a request for comment as of publishing.

Those questions are none of their business but as for the last paragraph, uh, did you ever think they bought it and took it offline because it had become a massive file sharing site where people could download porn for free and also to promote themselves? If they cared about performers they wouldn’t hurt their work by owning those tube sites.