An international anti-piracy coalition, including major Hollywood studios, has scored a significant victory against Fmovies, one of the largest illegal streaming operations based in Vietnam.
Ace worked with Hanoi police to shut down the illegal consortium – Photo Shutterstock
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), which includes companies such as Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon and Walt Disney Studios among its leading members, announced on Thursday that it had worked with Hanoi police to shut down Fmovies and affiliated sites. The illegal consortium, which included platforms such as Bflixz, Flixtorz, Movies7 and Myflixer in addition to Fmovies, was believed to be “the world’s largest pirate streaming operation”, according to ACE, accumulating over 6.7 billion visits between January 2023 and June 2024, The Guardian reports.
The operation also led to the shutdown of video hosting provider Vidsrc.to and its affiliate sites, which ACE claims were run by the same people. Hanoi police have arrested two Vietnamese men in connection with Fmovies, who have not yet been charged, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The efforts represented “an amazing victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios and the creative community around the world,” said Charles Rivkin, president and CEO of Hollywood trade group the Motion Picture Association (MPA), and president of ACE.
Larissa Knapp, executive vice president and chief content protection officer at MPA, said the move sent a “strong message of discouragement.”
“We look forward to continuing joint efforts with Vietnamese authorities, US Homeland Security Investigations and the US Department of Justice International Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (Ichip) program to bring criminal operators to justice“, she added.
ACE’s international members include BBC Studios, Canal+ Groupe, Televisa, MBC Group and RTL. The group works with various law enforcement agencies to combat online piracy of entertainment content, conducts litigation and issues cease and desist letters. Fmovies has been a major target for ACE for some time; in a speech at CinemaCon in 2024, Rivkin pointed out that about a third of the site’s traffic came from the US. Over the years, Fmovies and affiliated sites have repeatedly been included in the Office of the US Trade Representative’s annual review of “markets notorious for counterfeiting and piracy“.
In recent days, online subreddits have discussed the shutdown, with one user posting: “Between last night and this morning, everyone woke up to the streaming apocalypse, the sites their loved ones being wiped out by Uncle Sam. Anyone who posted a link or name dropped a site on this page congratulations, it’s your fault.“
