AnimeFLV Shut Down as MPA Claims Credit in U.S. Piracy Report

Last Updated on October 16, 2026 by Matte Akerson

The Motion Picture Association says two of the biggest pirate streaming operations, Cineby and AnimeFLV, went dark after its own enforcement push. The claim sits inside the MPA's annual filing to the U.S. Trade Representative, and it ends months of silence about why a portal with more than a billion visits a year suddenly stopped serving video.

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What Happened

Cineby was one of the most visited pirate streaming sites on the internet, drawing more than 160 million visits in July alone. In August the operators announced a surprise shutdown and took the site offline in stages, with the final domains going dark in early September. For weeks nobody explained the move and no anti-piracy group claimed it. In a closing statement the operators blamed the loss of two video providers, which they called the “Sflix group” and the “1Movies group”.

That silence is now over. In its annual submission to the U.S. Trade Representative, the MPA writes that both Cineby and its linked embed service, Videasy, “ceased operations following MPA and ACE actions”. The filing ties the takedown to an “extensive investigation and multi-region enforcement effort”. It says the main cineby.at domain is nonfunctional, Videasy is offline, and the related Vidking service still loads but has “no connected source servers”.

The same filing credits Vietnamese law enforcement with dismantling the HiAnime network, which the MPA says included Sflix/MyFlixer and Megacloud/Vidcloud. Seven suspected operators were charged in July. The MPA also lists AnimeFLV, a Spanish-language anime portal that it says once pulled in more than a billion visits a year. The site stopped serving video in mid-June, and its domain now returns an HTTP 502 error.

Key Facts

Cineby: more than 160 million visits in July, then offline in stages over more than a week, with the last domains dark in early September.
AnimeFLV: more than a billion annual visits according to the MPA, stopped serving video in mid-June, domain now returns HTTP 502.
Videasy: embed service shut down alongside Cineby; Vidking still loads but has “no connected source servers”.
Vietnam: the HiAnime network, including Sflix/MyFlixer and Megacloud/Vidcloud, was dismantled and seven suspects were charged in July.
Streamed: a live-sports piracy service used by about 30 sites that drew 463 million visits in July, up from 134 million a year earlier.
Kisskh: the only priority streaming entry this year, with more than 70 million visits in August, mostly from India.
Copycats: cineby.vg and other clones have appeared since the takedown, and the MPA names them in the report.

What It Means

The MPA counts the shutdowns as wins, but its own filing shows how fast the supply refills. VidFast is reportedly used by at least 158 pirate sites with roughly 629 million monthly visits combined. Telegram now tops the cyberlocker priority list, which the MPA calls “a platform of immediate concern” because its handling of takedown notices ranges from swift to weeks of inaction. For viewers, the lesson is that a headline portal can vanish while unknown clones take its place, and those clones carry far more risk. The dependable route to the same shows is a licensed service, and many of those libraries are geo-restricted, so a VPN stays the practical way to reach them from the wrong country. The USTR will review the MPA submission, and its own notorious markets list is expected early next year.

Related Guide

If you would rather stream through licensed platforms than unverified clones, our guide to the best movie streaming sites covers the safe options.

Source: TorrentFreak.

Note: A VPN can protect your privacy and help you reach content you already pay for. Site-blocking laws and each service's Terms of Service still apply, so check your local rules before relying on any workaround.