The Motion Picture Association (MPA) has launched its most aggressive anti-piracy campaign to date in 2025, targeting over 40 domains and taking legal action against infrastructure providers such as Cloudflare in an effort to curb the increasing dominance of illegal anime streaming platforms.
Overview of the 2025 MPA Enforcement Campaign
The MPA’s latest initiative marks a shift in strategy from targeting individual content-hosting sites to focusing on key infrastructure players. By subpoenaing companies like Cloudflare and domain registries, the organization aims to uncover the networks that enable piracy websites to operate.
Named Targets and Legal Action
- HiAnime and AnimeKai are among the high-traffic piracy platforms explicitly identified by the MPA.
- Cloudflare, a major infrastructure service provider, has been subpoenaed to provide operational data related to these illegal sites.
- 46 domains are being pursued, encompassing well-known piracy ‘zombie brands’ like 123moviesfree, Aniwave, and AnimeDefenders.
Why Piracy Platforms Thrive
Despite continuous efforts from legal platforms, pirated content providers maintain an edge in traffic, engagement, and content catalog depth. According to the MPA’s findings:
- Illegal anime sites often outperform Disney+ and Crunchyroll in monthly traffic, showing higher retention and user loyalty.
- Substantial anime libraries are made available by these sites without paywalls or regional locks, drawing fans frustrated by the limitations of legal platforms.
Challenges Facing Legitimate Streaming Platforms
Major services like Netflix, Disney+, and Crunchyroll face significant disadvantages:
- Regional licensing restrictions limit access to popular anime titles.
- Subscription costs continue to rise, pushing users toward free, illegal alternatives.
- Library cuts—such as Crunchyroll’s removal of many early 2000s series—leave major fan-favorite titles unavailable.
The Broader Implications for the Anime Industry
As legitimate outlets struggle to offer comprehensive, affordable, and accessible anime catalogs, fans are turning to piracy not just out of convenience, but necessity. The MPA’s expanded enforcement model may signal a new phase in the fight against digital piracy, one aimed at dismantling infrastructure rather than just battling symptoms.
Whether or not this anti-piracy approach will stem the tide remains to be seen, but it places renewed urgency on legal platforms to rethink licensing strategies, regional access, and pricing models to stay competitive.
Major Piracy Sites Outpace Legal Streaming Giants in Monthly Traffic
The shocking reality of anime streaming today reveals that illegal platforms consistently draw more viewers than legitimate services. HiAnime stands as one of the largest piracy destinations globally, generating monthly traffic numbers that dwarf established competitors like Disney+ and Crunchyroll.
Traffic analysis demonstrates that piracy sites achieve remarkable engagement levels that often exceed those of paid streaming services. HiAnime’s monthly visitor count surpasses several major legal platforms, highlighting a significant challenge for the entertainment industry. These statistics paint a concerning picture for content creators and distributors who invest billions in licensing and production.
Traffic Comparison Between Legal and Illegal Platforms
Recent data shows compelling evidence of how piracy sites dominate streaming traffic in several key areas:
- Monthly active users on HiAnime frequently exceed those of Disney+ in specific regions
- Anime-focused illegal platforms generate higher engagement rates than Crunchyroll’s premium tiers
- Search volume for piracy sites often outranks legitimate streaming services
- User session duration on illegal platforms typically surpasses that of paid competitors
- Mobile traffic to piracy sites shows consistent growth while legal platforms face stagnation
Netflix’s anime expansion efforts haven’t translated into market dominance against these illegal alternatives. Despite significant investments in original anime content and licensing deals, the platform struggles to match the sheer volume of traffic that piracy sites generate daily.
The disparity becomes even more pronounced when examining anime-specific viewership patterns. Crunchyroll, despite being the industry’s leading legal anime streaming service, faces constant competition from free illegal alternatives that offer the same content without subscription fees. These piracy platforms provide immediate access to new episodes, often uploading content within hours of its Japanese broadcast.
Disney+ encounters similar challenges in markets where anime content represents a significant portion of streaming demand. The platform’s limited anime library compared to specialized illegal sites creates gaps that pirates quickly fill. Users gravitate toward platforms offering comprehensive catalogs rather than fragmented content across multiple paid services.
The engagement metrics tell an even more troubling story for legitimate platforms. Illegal streaming sites report longer average viewing sessions, higher page views per visit, and increased user retention rates. This suggests that beyond simple cost considerations, these platforms provide user experiences that rival or exceed those of professional streaming services.
Geographic data reveals that piracy sites maintain particularly strong footholds in regions where legal streaming options remain limited or expensive. Countries with restricted access to major platforms see dramatically higher traffic to illegal alternatives, creating substantial revenue losses for content creators and distributors.
The technical sophistication of modern piracy sites contributes significantly to their traffic success. Many illegal platforms now offer high-definition streaming, mobile optimization, and user-friendly interfaces that match or exceed the quality of legitimate services. These improvements eliminate traditional barriers that once made legal options more appealing.
Content availability represents another critical factor driving traffic to illegal platforms. While Japanese animation producers express concerns about streaming partnerships, piracy sites continue offering comprehensive libraries that span decades of anime content. Legal platforms often face licensing restrictions that limit their catalogs, creating opportunities for illegal alternatives to fill content gaps.
The speed of content delivery also favors piracy sites in many cases. Illegal platforms frequently upload new episodes faster than official channels, appealing to viewers who want immediate access to the latest releases. This timing advantage proves particularly significant for seasonal anime series with dedicated fan bases.
Monthly traffic statistics consistently demonstrate that the anime streaming landscape remains fragmented between legal and illegal options. The substantial visitor numbers flowing to piracy sites represent lost revenue opportunities for legitimate platforms and content creators, highlighting the ongoing challenges facing the industry’s efforts to combat unauthorized distribution.
Motion Picture Association Targets Over 40 Domains in Sweeping 2025 Investigation
The Motion Picture Association has launched an unprecedented investigation in 2025, marking a significant escalation in the fight against anime piracy. This comprehensive legal offensive targets over 40 domains suspected of hosting unauthorized anime content, representing the most extensive coordinated effort to date against illegal streaming platforms.
Infrastructure Providers Face Legal Scrutiny
The MPA’s strategy centers on obtaining crucial identification data through subpoenas issued to key infrastructure providers. Primary targets include:
- Cloudflare, the major content delivery network service
- Tonic, the registry operator for .to domains
- Various hosting services supporting suspected piracy operations
- DNS providers facilitating domain resolution for illegal platforms
Prominent sites like AnimeKai and HiAnime find themselves directly in the crosshairs of this investigation. These platforms, which have attracted millions of users seeking free anime content, now face potential shutdown as the MPA seeks to identify their operators and infrastructure dependencies.
This approach represents a fundamental shift in anti-piracy enforcement tactics. Rather than pursuing the traditional method of targeting content hosts directly, the MPA has chosen to focus on the underlying infrastructure that enables these platforms to operate. By subpoenaing companies like Cloudflare, investigators can access detailed records about domain ownership, traffic patterns, and operational structures that were previously difficult to obtain.
The .to domain registry has become a particular focus due to its popularity among anime piracy sites. Many illegal streaming platforms have gravitated toward these domains, believing they offer protection from takedown requests. However, the MPA’s direct engagement with Tonic demonstrates that no domain registry remains beyond the reach of copyright enforcement efforts.
This heightened legal strategy reflects broader industry concerns about the substantial revenue losses attributed to anime piracy. Streaming price increases have made piracy more attractive to budget-conscious viewers, creating additional urgency for content owners to protect their intellectual property.
The investigation’s scope extends beyond simple takedown notices. The MPA seeks comprehensive data that could reveal networks of connected piracy operations, potentially uncovering sophisticated international distribution schemes. This information could enable law enforcement agencies to pursue criminal charges against operators who have previously operated with relative impunity.
The U.S. Trade Representative has officially recognized anime piracy platforms as a top enforcement priority for international copyright protection in 2025. This designation elevates anime piracy to the same level as other major intellectual property concerns, ensuring dedicated resources and diplomatic pressure to combat these operations globally.
Legal experts note that this coordinated approach could set precedents for future copyright enforcement actions. The success of targeting infrastructure providers rather than content hosts could reshape how entertainment companies pursue piracy cases across all media types.
Netflix’s expanding anime catalog and similar investments by legitimate platforms underscore the economic stakes involved. As streaming services invest billions in anime content, protecting these investments from piracy becomes increasingly critical to business sustainability.
The investigation’s timing coincides with growing international cooperation on intellectual property enforcement. Multiple countries have begun implementing stricter measures against piracy platforms, creating a more challenging operating environment for illegal streaming sites.
Infrastructure providers now face difficult decisions about compliance with these subpoenas. Companies like Cloudflare must balance user privacy concerns with legal obligations, potentially affecting how they structure services for clients in high-risk categories.
The anime industry’s unique global distribution model makes piracy particularly damaging. Unlike traditional entertainment content, anime often experiences significant delays between Japanese broadcasts and international releases, creating demand that piracy platforms exploit. Producer concerns about streaming platforms have intensified as they struggle to monetize content effectively in markets flooded with illegal alternatives.
This MPA investigation represents just the beginning of what industry insiders expect to be sustained pressure on anime piracy operations throughout 2025. The comprehensive data collection efforts suggest that enforcement actions will continue expanding as investigators build detailed maps of global piracy networks.
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL10NWKboioZQk7aK4yQCe35szT9KqDMQk
Complete List of Zombie Brands and Targeted Domains
The Motion Picture Association’s enforcement actions have specifically targeted several prominent illegal streaming platforms that operate as zombie brands. These sites include 123moviesfree, Aniwave, AnimeDefenders, AniGo, JkAnime, HiAnime, Nunflix, Bingewatch, Fmovies, and Cuevana. Each platform has built substantial user bases by offering free access to copyrighted anime content and movies that would typically require subscriptions to legitimate services.
I’ve observed how these enforcement efforts consistently face the hydra phenomenon, where shutting down one domain only leads to multiple new iterations appearing almost immediately. When authorities close HiAnime or AnimeKai, for example, these platforms simply migrate to new domain extensions or create mirror sites with slightly altered names. This creates an endless cycle that frustrates both content creators and legal streaming services.
How Proxy Sites Maintain Illegal Access
Proxy sites serve as the backbone for these zombie brands’ survival strategy. Users who discover their favorite illegal streaming site has been shut down can quickly locate proxy domains that restore access to the same content library. The following methods help these platforms evade enforcement:
- Domain hopping across different country extensions (.com, .net, .org, .to, .tv)
- Creating mirror sites with similar names but different spellings
- Utilizing content delivery networks that mask server locations
- Implementing redirect chains that confuse takedown efforts
- Establishing backup domains before primary sites face shutdown
These proxy strategies directly impact legitimate platforms’ revenue streams. Disney Plus and Hulu price increases partly stem from lost revenue due to piracy competition. Similarly, Netflix’s anime expansion efforts face challenges when illegal sites offer the same content without subscription fees.
The continuous emergence of new proxy sites creates a persistent challenge for content enforcement. Animation producers expressing concerns about Netflix often cite revenue losses from piracy as a contributing factor to their frustrations with streaming partnerships.
Legal streaming services combat this issue by developing exclusive content and improving user experience. Netflix’s original anime productions represent one strategy to offer content unavailable through illegal channels. However, zombie brands adapt quickly, often featuring pirated versions of new releases within hours of their official debut.
Crunchyroll Content Removals Create Streaming Availability Gaps
Crunchyroll’s decision to remove several classic 2000s anime titles from its platform in 2025 has created substantial holes in the legal streaming landscape. I’ve observed these removals leaving entire series completely unavailable through legitimate channels, forcing fans to either abandon their favorite shows or seek alternative methods of access.
The streaming giant’s catalog adjustments have particularly affected older anime series that helped define the medium during its golden age. Shows that once served as entry points for new anime fans now exist in a legal limbo, creating frustration among both longtime enthusiasts and newcomers attempting to explore anime’s rich history. These content gaps represent more than just missing entertainment options—they signal a broader challenge within the anime streaming ecosystem.
The Ripple Effect of Limited Legal Access
When legitimate platforms remove content without replacement options elsewhere, viewers face difficult choices. I notice this pattern creates several concerning outcomes for the anime community:
- Fans lose access to series they’ve been watching mid-season or planned to revisit
- New viewers can’t legally discover classic titles that are frequently recommended
- Educational institutions and libraries struggle to provide legal access for academic purposes
- Content creators miss opportunities to reach new audiences through their older works
Netflix currently maintains at least 30 prominent anime shows in its catalog, yet even this substantial offering can’t fill all the gaps left by Crunchyroll’s removals. The platform has been working to expand its anime library, but licensing agreements and regional restrictions continue to limit comprehensive coverage.
The vulnerability of popular Netflix anime to piracy remains a significant concern. High-profile series often face unauthorized distribution regardless of their legal availability, but content gaps elsewhere can amplify this issue. When fans can’t find specific titles through legitimate means, they may turn to unofficial sources, potentially undermining the entire legal streaming model.
Streaming platforms operate under complex licensing agreements that dictate content availability windows. I understand these agreements often include expiration dates, territorial restrictions, and renewal negotiations that can result in sudden removals. However, the industry lacks a coordinated approach to ensure continuity of access when one platform loses rights to specific content.
The 2025 removals highlight how dependent anime fans have become on streaming services for legal access. Unlike physical media collections, streaming availability can vanish overnight, leaving viewers with few alternatives. This dependency becomes particularly problematic for classic series that may not receive DVD or Blu-ray releases in certain regions.
Industry observers point to several factors contributing to these content gaps. Rising licensing costs, increased competition among streaming platforms, and changing business priorities all influence which titles remain available. Producers face challenges balancing profitability with fan accessibility, often making difficult decisions about where to place their content.
The situation creates a paradox where legal streaming services—designed to combat piracy—may inadvertently encourage it through content unavailability. When legitimate options disappear, some viewers inevitably seek unauthorized alternatives rather than going without their preferred entertainment.
Regional licensing restrictions compound these accessibility issues. Content that remains available in Japan or other markets may become completely inaccessible in North America or Europe following removals. This geographic disparity in availability further complicates the legal streaming landscape for international anime fans.
The anime industry’s rapid growth has brought both opportunities and challenges for content distribution. While new series continue to emerge on major platforms, ensuring consistent access to the medium’s foundational works requires ongoing attention from both platforms and rights holders.
These content gaps demonstrate the need for more collaborative approaches between streaming services, licensing companies, and content creators. Without coordinated efforts to maintain legal accessibility, the anime community may continue facing periods where beloved series simply vanish from legitimate viewing options, potentially driving audiences back to the unauthorized distribution methods that streaming services originally sought to replace.
How Enforcement Strategy Shifted to Target Internet Infrastructure
The Motion Picture Association has fundamentally altered its approach to combating anime piracy, moving away from traditional content removal requests to focus on the underlying internet infrastructure that enables these operations. This strategic pivot represents a significant escalation in enforcement tactics that could reshape how piracy sites operate.
Infrastructure-Level Targeting Replaces Content Takedowns
Rather than pursuing the familiar route of sending takedown notices to content hosts, the MPA now directs its legal efforts at services like Cloudflare and domain registries. These infrastructure providers form the backbone of internet operations, making them critical chokepoints for enforcement actions. I’ve observed that this approach targets the technical foundation that allows piracy sites to function, rather than just addressing the visible content.
The shift represents a calculated move to attack piracy networks at their most vulnerable points. Traditional takedown notices often resulted in content simply migrating to new hosts or mirrors, creating an endless game of digital whack-a-mole. By focusing on infrastructure services, enforcement agencies can potentially disrupt entire networks with single actions.
Legal Mechanisms Focus on Data Collection
The current enforcement strategy employs subpoenas that specifically request identification data from infrastructure providers. This departure from standard takedown procedures allows the MPA to gather detailed information about site operators, including:
- IP addresses and server locations used by piracy networks
- Registration details and payment information linked to domains
- Traffic patterns and user data that reveal operational structures
- Technical configurations that expose additional connected services
This comprehensive data collection approach enables authorities to map entire piracy ecosystems rather than addressing individual sites in isolation. The legal mechanism emphasizes gathering intelligence that can lead to broader network dismantling efforts.
The MPA’s recent campaign targeted 46 domains in a coordinated enforcement push, demonstrating the scale and scope of this new strategy. This number represents a significant concentration of resources on infrastructure-level actions rather than dispersed content removal efforts. Each subpoena in this campaign focused on extracting maximum intelligence value from infrastructure providers.
Major streaming platforms including Netflix and Disney have likely provided support for these enforcement efforts, given their substantial investments in anime content. Disney Plus and Hulu’s recent price increases partly reflect the costs associated with content protection and licensing fees that piracy undermines.
The infrastructure targeting strategy creates several advantages for content protection efforts. Service providers like Cloudflare process massive volumes of traffic and maintain detailed logs that can reveal operational patterns. Domain registries hold registration information that often connects to real-world identities and payment methods. These data points create a comprehensive picture that traditional content-focused enforcement couldn’t achieve.
This enforcement evolution particularly impacts anime piracy operations, which often rely on complex international hosting arrangements and content delivery networks. Japanese animation producers losing hope in Netflix highlights the industry’s frustration with piracy’s impact on legitimate distribution channels.
The technical sophistication of modern piracy networks requires equally sophisticated enforcement responses. Infrastructure-level targeting addresses the reality that today’s piracy operations function as distributed networks rather than simple file-sharing sites. By focusing on the technical services that enable these networks, enforcement agencies can potentially achieve more lasting disruption effects.
Infrastructure providers now find themselves at the center of content protection efforts, facing increased legal scrutiny and compliance requirements. This shift places additional responsibilities on technical service providers who previously operated with minimal involvement in content disputes. The change reflects the industry’s recognition that effective piracy enforcement requires addressing the technological ecosystem that supports unauthorized distribution.
Current State of Legal Anime Streaming Competition
The anime streaming landscape has become increasingly crowded as Disney+ aggressively expands its anime catalog to compete with established players Netflix and Crunchyroll. I’ve observed how this three-way competition has intensified, with each platform attempting to secure exclusive content deals and build substantial libraries that can retain subscribers in this lucrative market segment.
Platform Positioning and Content Strategy
Disney+ has made significant investments in anime content, recognizing the genre’s growing mainstream appeal and subscriber retention potential. The platform’s strategy differs from its competitors by focusing on high-production value series and leveraging its existing relationships with major studios. Netflix continues to pursue its dual approach of licensing popular existing series while simultaneously developing original anime content, including projects like Scott Pilgrim anime adaptations and rumored ventures such as Dark Souls anime projects.
Crunchyroll maintains its position as the dedicated anime specialist, offering the most comprehensive legal library with simulcast releases that provide near-simultaneous access to new episodes. However, streaming gaps remain a persistent challenge across all three platforms, as licensing agreements often create regional restrictions and delayed releases that frustrate viewers seeking immediate access to content.
Challenges from Unauthorized Alternatives
Illegal streaming platforms consistently outperform legal services in terms of content availability and user convenience. These unauthorized sites frequently offer several key advantages that legal platforms struggle to match:
- Complete anime libraries without regional licensing restrictions
- Immediate access to new episodes without geographical delays
- No subscription fees or account registration requirements
- Higher video quality options for older series that legal platforms may not prioritize
- Comprehensive collections including rare or discontinued series
The streaming competition becomes more complex when considering that illegal platforms often provide better user experiences than their legal counterparts. I’ve noticed how these unauthorized services capitalize on the content availability limitations that plague even the most well-funded legal streaming platforms.
Legal services face additional internal challenges beyond piracy competition. Rising subscription costs across platforms like Disney+ create barriers for viewers who might prefer legal access but find the cumulative expense of multiple streaming services prohibitive. Content fragmentation across different platforms means anime fans often need subscriptions to multiple services to access their desired shows, driving some toward unauthorized alternatives that consolidate everything in one location.
Netflix has attempted to address these challenges by expanding its anime and classics catalog, though some producers express concerns about the platform’s commitment to anime content. The company’s approach includes developing original animated series, such as Stranger Things animation projects, to create exclusive content that can’t be found elsewhere.
Streaming gaps continue to redirect viewers toward unauthorized alternatives despite the substantial investments made by Disney+, Netflix, and Crunchyroll. These gaps occur due to complex licensing negotiations, regional distribution rights, and the time-sensitive nature of anime releases. Legal access remains complicated by the fact that different platforms hold rights to different seasons of the same series, or that certain popular titles remain unavailable on any legal platform in specific regions.
The current competitive landscape demonstrates how legal anime streaming services must balance content acquisition costs, subscriber pricing, and user experience while competing against unauthorized platforms that operate without these constraints. Each major platform continues to develop distinct strategies for capturing market share, but the fundamental challenges of content availability and pricing remain significant obstacles in converting users from illegal streaming alternatives.
Sources:
CBR, “HiAnime, AnimeKai & More Return as Major Anime Streaming Targets in New U.S. Crackdown”
GamesRadar, “Crunchyroll just removed this classic 2000s anime and it now can’t be streamed anywhere online”
YouTube (GamesRadar summary), “Anime Piracy Site Returns as ‘Priority Streaming’ Target in New U.S.”
