The Motion Picture Association (MPA) has officially claimed responsibility for the sudden and mysterious shutdowns of several high-profile pirate streaming giants, including the immensely popular movie portal Cineby and the Spanish-language anime titan AnimeFLV.
For months, the abrupt disappearance of these platforms baffled the online piracy community. Cineby, which boasted over 160 million visits in July alone, began a staged shutdown in August that saw its final domains go dark by early September. At the time of their departure, the operators of Cineby offered a vague explanation, pointing to the earlier collapse of their two primary video infrastructure providers—which they identified as the "Sflix group" and the "1Movies group"—claiming that their service never managed to recover from the blow.
Similarly, AnimeFLV, a massive hub for Spanish-speaking anime fans that once reaped more than a billion annual visits, quietly ceased serving video content in mid-June. Throughout both closures, major anti-piracy coalitions remained silent, leaving internet sleuths and industry watchers guessing about the forces behind the scenes. That silence has now been broken through an official regulatory filing submitted by Hollywood’s chief lobbying arm.
The MPA Takes Credit
Last week, the Motion Picture Association submitted its annual overview of notorious foreign piracy markets to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). Before delving into the ongoing threats that continue to plague copyright holders, the Hollywood advocacy group took the opportunity to highlight significant victories achieved since its previous submission.
Among the primary wins cited by the MPA are the demises of Cineby and the closely linked embedding service Videasy. In its official filing, the organization stated that the platforms—specifically listing Cineby.app and Videasy.net—ceased operations following coordinated actions by the MPA and the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE).
The MPA further detailed that the takedown of Cineby-associated infrastructure was the result of an extensive investigation and multi-region enforcement effort. While the official submission does not explicitly name specific courts or police forces involved in the Cineby operation, it indicates that the takedown was part of a robust private enforcement campaign. As a result of these efforts, the primary Cineby domain has been rendered nonfunctional, and Videasy has been completely taken offline. Meanwhile, a related service known as Vidking remains technically accessible, though the MPA notes it currently operates without any connected source servers.
Hollywood’s enforcement arm also credited Vietnamese law enforcement with dismantling the massive HiAnime piracy network in July. According to the MPA’s assessment, the HiAnime ring encompassed related operations such as Sflix, MyFlixer, Megacloud, and Vidcloud, resulting in criminal charges against seven suspected operators. This criminal action perfectly aligns with Cineby’s previous statements regarding the collapse of the "Sflix group," confirming that Cineby had heavily relied on the infrastructure provided by the now-dusted Vietnamese syndicate.
Despite these enforcement milestones, the hydra-like nature of online piracy means that major brands rarely vanish permanently. The MPA noted in its report that several unauthorized copycats have already emerged to capitalize on the vacant space left by Cineby, including a domain identified as cineby.vg.
AnimeFLV Too
Cineby was not the only major scalp claimed by the MPA in its latest USTR submission. The Hollywood group also officially took credit for the collapse of AnimeFLV, marking a major turning point in the ongoing battle against Spanish-language digital piracy.
When AnimeFLV abruptly stopped serving video content to its millions of daily users during the summer, its operators maintained absolute radio silence. For weeks, the domain merely served as a ghost town until it eventually degraded into an HTTP 502 error page that failed to load any content whatsoever. Without an official statement from anti-piracy groups at the time, the reasons behind the sudden blackout remained purely speculative.
The MPA’s recent filing explicitly links the disappearance of the AnimeFLV portal family to joint MPA and ACE enforcement actions, calling the shutdown a significant success for copyright protection. However, much like its streaming counterpart, the AnimeFLV brand name has quickly been picked up by opportunistic copycats attempting to siphon traffic from the original audience base.
The Hydra Keeps Growing
While celebrating the high-profile closures of Cineby, Videasy, AnimeFLV, and the HiAnime syndicate, the MPA’s comprehensive report emphasizes that the global piracy ecosystem continues to expand and adapt like a multi-headed hydra. The organization’s extensive overview highlights dozens of persistent threats, pointing to shifting trends in how illicit content is distributed across the internet.
In the category of linking and streaming websites, Kisskh has ascended to the top of the priority list. Specializing in Asian dramas alongside mainstream Hollywood content, the site’s primary domain pulled in more than 70 million visits in August alone, with a vast majority of its audience originating from India.
The report places heavy emphasis on the growing phenomenon of "hydra sites"—pirate portals that do not host their own video files, but instead rely on third-party Piracy-as-a-Service (PaaS) platforms to deliver streams to users. A prominent example cited in the filing is the live sports PaaS platform Streamed. According to the MPA, approximately 30 different pirate sites utilizing the Streamed infrastructure collectively amassed 463 million visits in July, marking a dramatic surge from 134 million visits during the same period a year prior.
New entrants crowding the hydra landscape include streaming portals such as 1Shows, 1Flex, CineHD, VidBox, and StreamEX. On the infrastructure side, while services like Videasy and MegaCloud have been successfully knocked offline, new PaaS alternatives have quickly emerged to fill the void. The MPA highlights VidFast as a rising concern, noting that the service is currently utilized by at least 158 distinct pirate websites that collectively attract roughly 629 million monthly visits.
The landscape of cyberlockers and video hosting services has also shifted, with messaging application Telegram leaping to the top of the priority list. The MPA criticized Telegram for its inconsistent enforcement posture, stating that the platform’s response times to copyright takedown notices range from swift action to weeks of complete inaction, making it an immediate concern for rightsholders. DoodStream, previously holding a priority status, was shifted to the regular list of concerns.
Additionally, the MPA provided fresh updates regarding Netulu, a hosting entity incorporated in Delaware in April. According to the Hollywood group, following its corporate formation, numerous pirate websites previously hosted by Private Layer were seamlessly transferred to Netulu. U.S.-based investigators are reportedly actively following leads regarding the enterprise.
Mobile applications continue to represent a massive vector for unauthorized content consumption as well. The controversial pirate application MovieBox returned to the MPA’s radar, with the report initially citing over 243 million downloads originating from just the Palm Store alone—a figure that independent tracking suggests has already surged past the 300-million mark.
The USTR will spend the coming months reviewing the MPA’s detailed submission alongside input from various other global stakeholders, with the official Notorious Markets List expected to be published early next year.
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