The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a coalition that aims to protect corporate profits and copyrighted materials of entertainment companies and film studios, claimed they have taken down the world’s largest pirate streaming operation.
Fmovies, based in Vietnam, was the most popular site that was taken down by the operation. ACE and the Hanoi Police collaborated to take down Fmovies and other affiliated sites including bflixz, flixtorz, movies7, myflixer, and aniwave. ACE says those sites drew more than 6.7 billion visits between January 2023 and June 2024.
“The takedown of Fmovies is a stunning victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios, and the creative community across the globe,” said Charles Rivkin, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association and Chairman of ACE. “With the leadership of ACE and the partnership of the Ministry of Public Security and the Hanoi Municipal Police, we are countering criminal activity, defending the safety of audiences, reducing risks posed to tens of millions of consumers, and protecting the rights and livelihoods of creators.”
Fmovies was launched in 2016, and peaked in 2023 as the 11th most popular website in the category of TV, Movies & Streaming, according to data analytics company SimilarWeb. During that time, the piracy website was the 280th most popular among all categories, according to the data.
“We commend the Hanoi Police for working with ACE to shut down the world’s largest piracy ring and sending a powerful deterrent message in this milestone case,” said Larissa Knapp, Executive Vice President and Chief Content Protection Officer for the MPA. “The takedown of Fmovies is a testament to the power of collaboration in protecting the intellectual property rights of creators around the world. We look forward to ongoing joint efforts with Vietnamese authorities, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Department of Justice International Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (ICHIP) program to bring the criminal operators to justice.”
Studios and entertainment companies have been cracking down on piracy operations throughout the world. Earlier this year, operators of the pirated streaming services Jetflix and iStreamItAll, which reportedly made millions, were indicted and could be facing up to 48 years in prison. The sites were seized back in 2019 due to violating copyright infringement.
It isn’t just film, shows, and visual media that is cracking down. The RIAA has gone after internet service providers for not doing enough to respond to copyright claims. They’ve sued Cox Communications and Verizon in the past for not stopping piracy or responding to copyright claims quickly enough.
Studios have targeted the anonymity of Reddit users in the past in an effort to stop piracy. However, they have been striking out, for now, and the information of users is being protected.
Check out our video below to learn more about The War on IPTV and Piracy.
