Prosecution of the person behind the largest pirated movie website in Vietnam
The Economic Police Department - Hanoi City Police has just taken down a huge pirated movie website with nearly 50,000 movies showing signs of copyright and related rights infringement.
On November 9, Hanoi City Police announced that they had initiated a case and prosecuted Phan Thanh Cong and Nguyen Tuan Anh (both born in 1990, in Ha Dong district) for copyright and related rights infringement.
Previously, the Economic Police Department - Hanoi City Police received information about the case of the Fmovies website attracting more than 6.7 billion visits in 6 months of 2024, having violated copyright and related rights to cinematographic works of the Motion Picture Association of America - MPA. Therefore, the police have conducted verification to clarify.
Through discussions with representatives of several security agencies and relevant agencies of the United States, the police agency determined that the Fmovies website system currently has nearly 50,000 films with signs of copyright and related rights infringement, including many protected MPA films; the Fmovies website system has a scale of illegally showing MPA films to users worldwide...
The police agency urgently deployed professional measures, determined information and background of the criminals, and collected documents and evidence to clarify the methods of operation, as well as the role of each subject.
Through that, the police identified the mastermind, leader, creator, operator, and manager of the Fmovies website system as Phan Thanh Cong (who had been administratively disciplined for similar behavior); Nguyen Tuan Anh played a supporting role in illegally copying and posting MPA's movies on the Fmovies website and satellite sites.
From 2016 to August 2024, the subjects committed crimes, illegally profiting hundreds of thousands of USD.
At the investigation agency, the subjects confessed to all crimes.
