LOS ANGELES – The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s leading anti-piracy coalition, has shut down ANIMEFLIX, a notorious piracy website dedicated to anime content. The operation, based near Helsinki, Finland, logged between 7 and 13 million monthly visits and had 2 million unique visitors per month.
Nearly one-third of the site traffic originated from the United States, followed by India and the Philippines. The site also logged unique visitors from other countries.
Users of the illicit site, which was available at no cost, could access more than 500 anime movies and over 400 anime series. The site’s user interface closely resembled those of legitimate streaming services, allowing users to set up accounts, tag favorite content and create content collections. It also featured a schedule of upcoming series.
“There is no justification for copyright infringement,” said Larissa Knapp, Executive Vice President and Chief Content Protection Officer at the Motion Picture Association (MPA). “Whenever films or TV shows are pirated, it’s not just content owners or studios that are affected — it’s also the people who work as writers, storyboard artists, illustrators, editors, sound mixers and more. We will continue to fight to protect the worldwide creative marketplace.”
ANIMEFLIX and its associated domains now redirect to the “Watch Legally” page on the ACE website.
About The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) is the world’s leading coalition dedicated to protecting the legal creative market and reducing digital piracy. Driven by a comprehensive approach to addressing piracy through criminal referrals, civil litigation, and cease-and-desist operations, ACE has achieved many successful global enforcement actions against illegal streaming services and unauthorized content sources and their operators. Drawing upon the collective expertise and resources of more than 50 media and entertainment companies around the world—including sports channels and associations—and reinforced by the Motion Picture Association’s content protection operations, ACE protects the creativity and innovation that drives the global growth of core copyright and entertainment industries. The current governing board members for ACE are Amazon, Apple TV+, Netflix, Paramount Global, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, The Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. Discovery. Charles Rivkin is Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association and Chairman of ACE.
Media Contact
Pamela Corante
pamela_corante@motionpictures.org
