Antipiracy coalition and Vietnamese police shut down major pirate streaming business

After an eight-year effort, a major pirated movie and TV series streaming operation based in Vietnam has been shut down, according to a global antipiracy group.

Hanoi-based Fmovies and its associated sites drew nearly 374 million monthly visits, with more than 6.7 billion visits alone between January 2023 and this June. With hundreds of online domains, it was the largest pirate streaming operation in the world, according to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, an antipiracy group that worked in collaboration with the Hanoi police to shut down Fmovies.

“The Fmovies takedown is honestly a global turning point for us,” said Charlie Rivkin, chair of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment and chairman and chief executive of the Motion Picture Assn. trade group, which shares resources and expertise with the alliance. “It should send a signal to other piracy operators around the world that they’re going to face justice for violating copyright laws. We’re going to find them. We’re going to take them down.”

Representatives for Fmovies could not be reached for comment.

After launching in 2016, Fmovies was quickly met with legal action. Filipino media company ABS-CBN sued the site just months after its debut, alleging copyright infringement. A California court ordered the operation to pay $218,000 in damages and shut down, but it continued operating.

In August, the site was taken down by Vietnamese authorities.

Two Vietnamese men were identified as the operators of Fmovies, and a Vietnamese court has agreed to pursue the legal case against them. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment did not disclose the men’s names or other details of the operation.

“The Vietnamese movie industry is at a pivotal stage of development, transitioning from a state-subsidized production model to a rapidly growing phase driven by private-sector involvement,” Ngo Phuong Lan, chair of the Vietnam Film Development Assn., said in a statement. “Intellectual property rights protection is a crucial element for our industry’s success.”

Composed of major studios and media companies such as Paramount Global, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has shut down several high-traffic piracy operations around the world in the last year.

In December, the group shut down more than 600 piracy sites in Latin America, including more than 320 in Peru. One month earlier, the coalition shut down an operation in Egypt with 65 domains that counted 29 million monthly visits.

Copyright theft remains a major headache for the entertainment industry. The unauthorized release of a movie before its theatrical debut can decrease box office revenue by as much as 20%.

And with box office sales not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, and studios shedding jobs due to massive overspending on streaming efforts, those revenue declines can be key, Rivkin said. Earlier this year, he estimated that, on average, piracy costs the movie theater business more than $1 billion per year.

“Piracy is an existential threat to our business,” Rivkin said. “It’s in everybody’s best interest to curb piracy; for the theaters, for the creatives, for our studios.”