Vietnam piracy ring broken up
August 29, 2024
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, whose members include Netflix and Walt Disney Studios, worked with Vietnamese law enforcement to shut down a number of pirate streaming sites.
The coalition comprised of major studios is claiming victory against Fmovies, a significant streaming operation based in Vietnam. They say that, along with affiliates, it was “the largest pirate streaming operation in the world,” 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 says.
The enforcement also shut down video hosting provider Vidsrc.to and its affiliated sites, which were “operated by the same suspects,” says ACE. Two Vietnamese men were arrested by Hanoi police in connection with Fmovies and have yet to be charged.
Charles Rivkin, the chairman and CEO of Hollywood trade group the Motion Picture Association and the chairman of ACE, told the Hollywood Reporter it was “a stunning victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios, and the creative community across the globe” in a statement.