An anti-piracy coalition of major movie studios from the United States and around the world is claiming victory against Fmovies, a major streaming company based in Vietnam.
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment revealed Thursday that it had worked with Hanoi police to shut down Fmovies and its affiliated sites, which together constituted “the world’s largest pirate streaming operation,” according to the organization. With sites including bflixz, flixtorz, movies7, myflixer and aniwave in addition to Fmovies, the operation attracted more than 6.7 billion visits between January 2023 and June 2024, ACE said.
The effort also led to the shutdown of video hosting provider Vidsrc.to and its affiliated sites, which were “run by the same suspects,” according to ACE. Two Vietnamese men were arrested by Hanoi police in connection with Fmovies and have yet to be charged.
Charles Rivkin, president and CEO of the Hollywood Motion Picture Association trade group and chairman of ACE, called the action “a tremendous victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios and the creative community around the world” in a statement. His colleague Larissa Knapp, executive vice president and chief content officer for the MPA, said the removal sent a “powerful deterrent message.” She added, “We look forward to continuing our joint efforts with Vietnamese authorities, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Department of Justice’s International Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (ICHIP) program to bring criminal operators to justice.”
With government members including Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon and The Walt Disney Studios, among others, ACE works with law enforcement agencies nationally and internationally to combat online entertainment piracy. The group also pursues litigation and issues cease-and-desist letters. Its international members include BBC Studios, Canal+ Groupe, Televisa, MBC Group and RTL.
Fmovies has long been a target of ACE affiliate MPA, with Rivkin noting that a third of its traffic came from the United States in a 2024 CinemaCon speech. The Office of the US Trade Representative has included the site in its “Annual Review of Known Counterfeiting and Piracy Marketplaces” for several years running, along with other sites including ThePirateBay, Sci-Hub, and 1337X. According to data aggregation firm SimilarWeb, Fmoviesz.to was the 280th most popular website in the world across all categories in 2023.
Fmovies and piracy subreddits have noticed the shutdowns in recent days and have been discussing alternative websites. One user asked, “Can someone message me some decent sites please!! I really don't want to sit around and watch YouTube all day, every day, I was literally in the middle of watching Call the Midwife when it was taken down.”
Another said: “Everyone woke up last night and this morning to a streaming apocalypse of their beloved sites being deleted by Uncle Sam. Whoever posted a link or put a name on this page, congratulations, it's your fault.”