The world’s largest film piracy ring, Fmovies, has reportedly been shuttered after an international coalition, which included major Hollywood studios, worked with police in Hanoi, Vietnam, to shut it down.
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) coalition announced on Thursday that it worked with Hanoi police to shut down Vietnam-based Fmovies and affiliated sites, which together made “the largest pirate streaming operation in the world,” according to a report by Hollywood Reporter.
The coalition, which reportedly in part consisted of Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon, and Walt Disney Studios, added that in addition to Fmovies, the affiliated sites included bflixz, flixtorz, movies7, myflixer, and aniwave.
Hosting provider Vidsrc.to was also shut down as a result of the anti-piracy operation. Moreover, two Vietnamese men were arrested by Hanoi police in connection with Fmovies. They have not yet been charged.
Between just January 2023 and June 2024, the illegal film piracy ring attracted more than 6.7 billion visits, ACE — whose international members also include BBC Studios, Canal+ Groupe, Televisa, MBC Group, and RTL — said.
ACE chairman and CEO of the Hollywood trade group Motion Picture Association (MPA) Charles Rivkin called the takedown “a stunning victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios, and the creative community across the globe.”
Rivkin’s colleague Larissa Knapp, MPA’s executive Vice President and chief content protection officer, said the anti-piracy action sent a “powerful deterrent message.”
“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,” Knapp added.
Reddit users, meanwhile, reportedly reacted to the Fmovies shutdown by discussing alternative websites to pirate films.
“Can anyone message me with any decent sites please!! I dont really wanna sit and have to watch youtube all day everyday i was literally in the middle of watching call the midwife when it got removed,” one dismayed Reddit user wrote.
“Between last night and this morning everyone woke up to the streaming apocalypse of their beloved sites being deleted by Uncle Sam,” another commented. “Anyone who’s posted a link or name dropped a site on this page congrats it’s your fault.”
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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