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Anyone who sails in the bay of pirates may find booty harder to find for a while. Fmovies, a very large illegal streaming operation based in Vietnam, has been taken down in what is being described as a major victory for the entertainment industry.
A global coalition, including several Hollywood studios, was assembled by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) and they worked in conjunction with Hanoi police in an operation that led to raids yesterday.
An internet movie piracy streaming operation… probably.
Two Vietnamese men were arrested by Hanoi police, and are yet to be charged, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The operation also took down a host of affiliated sites, and video hosting provider Vidsrc.to and its affiliated sites, which were operated by the same suspects.
A statement from Charles Rivkin, chairman of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and ACE, referred to the operation as:
“…a stunning victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios, and the creative community across the globe. We took down the mothership here. There was a time when piracy was Whac-a-Mole. Today, we go after piracy at its root.”
ACE includes members like Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon, and Walt Disney Studios.
Larissa Knapp, a senior executive at the MPA, talked up the deterrent factor of raids like this:
“We look forward to ongoing 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 the criminal operators to justice.”
How big a deal is this? Sites also taken out in the same network included Bflixz, Flixtorz, Movies7, and Myflixer. The network was described as the largest pirate streaming network in the world, with over 6.7 billion visits from January 2023 to June 2024. Fmovies itself was once the 11th most popular website in the world in the TV, Movies, and Entertainment category.
The next stage is for the MPA to lead efforts to totally block piracy sites in over 60 countries, including the US.
Also chiming in, Marc E Knapper, US ambassador to Vietnam said:
“Strengthening intellectual property rights is an important element of the US-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership. These prosecutions demonstrate Vietnam’s commitment to intellectual property rights enforcement, contributing to an economic ecosystem where creators and inventors can thrive.”
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