Largest movie piracy service in Hanoi, Fmovies, shutdown

World’s largest film piracy service based in Hanoi, Fmovies has been shutdown by Vietnamese authorities bordering on piracy and copyright infringement.

This revelation was made by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) in Thursday, with the operation involving the likes of Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon, and Walt Disney Studios.

The Fmovies syndicate which attracted over 6.7 billion visits from January 2023 to June 2024, included sites such as Bfixz, Flixtorz, Movies7 and Myflixer.

The Alliance described it as “the largest pirate streaming operation in the world.”

Chairman of the ACE, Charles Rivkin said in a statement; “The takedown of Fmovies is a stunning victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios, and the creative community across the globe.

“We are countering criminal activity, defending the safety of audiences, reducing risks posed to tens of millions of consumers, and protecting the rights and livelihoods of creators.”

9News reports that Fmovies was established in 2016 and based in Hanoi, Vietnam, with a sizable number of Nigeria’s population patronizing what the ACE labeled as “the largest piracy ring in the world”.

Due to the shortcomings in the enforcement of piracy laws and the absence of intellectual property legislation, Nigeria ranks high on countries with movie piracy in their movie industry.

Significantly, streaming services are reducing the number of people watching films via websites like Fmovies, although World Bank estimates that for every legitimate copy of a Nigerian film sold, nine others are pirated.

However, the Fmovies website has emphasized that its services were completely free, claiming that it was the major factor for the authorities to clampdown on them.

With the arrest of about two individuals associated with the services, the Chairwoman of the Vietnam Film Development Association (VFDA), Ngo Phuong Lan emphasized on the need for better enforcement of intellectual property rights.

“The VFDA strongly applauds the efforts of ACE, in collaboration with Vietnamese authorities, to combat the serious infringing activities of the Fmovies operators,” she noted.

Meanwhile, statistics still indicate that pirated films gets over 230 billion views a year, with more than 141 billion visits made to piracy websites in 2023-2024.