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Six years ago when attention was focused elsewhere, the MPA warned that lacking legislation and rising broadband penetration would eventually transform Vietnam into a major online headache for rightsholders.
Yet perhaps not even the MPA expected sites like FMovies and Aniwatch to attract hundreds of millions of visitors every month. Coupled with a complex and politically sensitive environment in Vietnam, where established anti-piracy principles seemed to carry little to no weight, at times Hollywood's prospects of countering this unique threat seemed uncharacteristically hopeless.
Then seemingly out of nowhere, after FMovies and sister sites Bflix, Soap2day, and Sflix had switched to another set of fresh domains, technical issues at FMovies led to its disappearance mid-July. Sites linked to FMovies shut down just a few weeks after.
Historic Win For MPA/ACE, Familiar Morning After Headache
With seemingly relevant information pointing to MPA/ACE involvement, official confirmation arrived late August.
Shutting down the world's biggest movie and TV show sites in such difficult circumstances was undoubtedly a big win for the studios; yet in some respects, they'd been here before.
Most likely operated by the same group in Vietnam, 123movies shut down in 2018 only to reappear stronger than ever. Another example involved anime giant Aniwatch; ostensibly shut down by ACE while operating as Zoro in 2023, it simply rebranded to Aniwatch and casually pulled in record-breaking traffic.
Track Record of Deviating From Agreements
Whether anything similar is happening now in respect of FMovies and the other brands is difficult to say with complete certainty. However, with a few hundred million visits per month instantly available, it's safe to say that sites with similar branding to those recently shut down are fighting for a share.
Some domains quickly scooped up millions of extra visits but keeping track of so many moving targets, especially those involving domain switches and/or rebranding, can be extremely challenging. Luckily, the MPA employs people to do the heavily lifting.
Threats Revealed in Site-Blocking Actions
Not long after Fmovies, Bflix, Soap2day, Sflix, and other connected sites switched domains late May, the MPA moved to have domains blocked by ISPs in the UK.
Around 100 of those domains seem potentially relevant to events in Vietnam due to the nature of the sites and familiar naming conventions. A further 100 potentially relevant domains were blocked in July, and after a break in August, 33 domains were blocked in September and a further 84 thus far in October.
The scale of the problem is illustrated below, although not every domain requested for blocking appears here.
Some domains blocked by the MPA
The majority feature well-known branding, either directly linked to the shuttered domains (FMovies, Bflix, Soap2day, etc), historically linked (such as 123movies/movies123 and gomovies), or linked by single/mixed branding also used by other sites operating in the same niche.
To make the list manageable, domains with low traffic, no obvious link to events in Vietnam, or operating in a different niche, were removed in advance. Those that remain must be operating as full pirate sites since that's a requirement for blocking in the UK.
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.tg .tg-952y{background-color:#f9f9f9;font-size:14px;text-align:left;vertical-align:top}
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| Domain Pattern | #Block (June) | #Block (July) | #Block (Sept) | #Block (Oct) | #Total Blocked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 123movies/movies123 | 34 | 31 | 17 | 28 | 110 |
| fmovies/fmoviez | 8 | 13 | 5 | 10 | 36 |
| soap2day | 9 | 12 | 3 | 5 | 29 |
| flixer/flixtor/wave/braflix | 3 | 6 | – | 12 | 21 |
| solarmovie | 9 | 2 | – | 3 | 14 |
| gomovies | 3 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 13 |
| putlocker | 10 | 2 | – | 1 | 13 |
| primewire | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 12 |
| watchseries/watch | 2 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 11 |
| hurawatch | – | 6 | – | 1 | 7 |
| lookmovie/lookmovie2 | 4 | 1 | – | – | 5 |
| bflix | 3 | 1 | – | 1 | 5 |
| Total (inc.sundry others) | ~100 | ~100 | ~33 | ~84 | |
| Notes: Proxy-only, torrent sites, non-relevant and sundry other domains, have been removed. There are no records to indicate the MPA requested any blocking in August. The UK has no official public blocklist, so data should be considered potentially incomplete, and all figures as estimates | |||||
While FMovies was the most popular single site ever seen in the movie and TV show streaming sector, it appears that isn't enough to detract from the popularity of 123movies/movies123 branding which takes the top slot at considerable distance.
Another surprise is an apparent lack of interest in Bflix, at least in respect of domains that become popular enough to be considered a blocking threat. It's worth pointing out that while Bflix may seem insignificant here, more than 300 domains are currently listed as registered, with the majority still unexpired.
For Fmovies the number of domains previously registered rises to 1,400 and for 123movies/movies123 variants, around 3,500 seems like a reasonable estimate.
From: _, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
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By David Minister
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