Pirate Site Blocking Demands Intensify as U.S. Lawmakers Get Fmovies Walkthrough

Lawmakers saw a live demonstration of popular pirate movie streaming site Fmovies at a House Subcommittee Hearing yesterday. The walkthrough served as an introduction to renewed calls for site-blocking measures, which are gaining traction. U.S. Representative Ted Lieu, who swiftly loaded Fmovies on his phone, urged ISPs to block the blatant pirate site, right now.

For a long time, pirate site blocking was considered a topic most U.S. politicians would rather avoid.

This stance was a remnant of the SOPA defeat, which drove copyright holders to focus on blocking efforts in other countries instead, and not without success.

Those challenging times are now more than a decade old, and momentum is shifting. After more than forty countries around the world instituted site-blocking measures, including in Canada, U.S. lawmakers may be more receptive to revisiting this topic.

House Committee Hearing on Piracy

Yesterday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet held a hearing on Digital Copyright Piracy. Specifically, lawmakers were interested to learn about the scope of the problem and the solutions available today.

The representatives heard testimony from four witnesses. Rightsholders were represented by MPA’s Karyn Temple, UFC’s Riché McKnight, and award-winning producer Richard Gladstein. On the other side, CCIA’s Matthew Schruers defended the interests of Internet services.

From the start, it was clear that lawmakers see piracy as a serious problem that requires solutions. U.S. Representative and committee chairman, Darrell Issa, started the hearing by presenting an overview of today’s challenges, from a global perspective.

Pirates are ‘Hosted’ on Russian Military Bases

The committee chairman notes that piracy has evolved from back-alley sales of DVDs to international criminal operations. He specifically mentioned the Vietnamese-operated streaming site Fmovies, while Russian military bases also play a role.

“Many of these pirate websites like Fmovies are hosted on servers that exist outside the United States, currently outside our ability to take them down. This creates unique judicial challenges for enforcement against widespread piracy on such websites.

“In some cases, these websites are even hosted within foreign governments, like the Russian government on military bases, and other enemies of the United States,” Rep. Issa adds.

The Russian reference is interesting as the country has some of the most strict anti-piracy laws in the world today. Throughout the hearing, there was no further mention of the Russian military bases, but the comment may refer to optical disc piracy that took place nearly 30 years ago.

Fmovies, on the other hand, remained front and center at the House hearing.

Lawmakers get Fmovies Walkthrough

With over 160 million monthly visits, Fmovies is one of the most notorious pirate streaming sites. The portal recently rebranded to Fmoviesz but the modus operandi remains the same; people can watch whatever they want, whenever they like, without paying a dime.

MPA’s Senior Executive Vice President, Karyn Temple, illustrated the problem by giving a live demonstration of the website at the hearing.

“Anyone can simply type the Fmovies URL into their favorite browser today and an extremely professional and legitimate-looking site pops up. You can literally scroll through thousands of movies and television shows including this year’s Blockbusters and even movies that have not yet hit theaters.

“You’ll see all of our top-rated Blockbusters and popular films. Here you see coming up Wonka, which won’t be out in the United States theaters until this Friday,” Temple said while browsing through the site.
content remains the key option to deter piracy, while noting the availability of less-invasive enforcement avenues that can be explored.

These concerns didn’t immediately convince all lawmakers and U.S. Representative Ted Lieu was particularly vocal. After browsing the Fmovies site on his phone during the hearing, he asked CCIA’s President why ISPs don’t block the site right now.

“I just went on my phone and went on Fmovies and it’s still up. And I can watch Willy Wonka for free without paying for it. Why don’t the online service providers block it right now, like today?” Lieu asked.

This is such an unreasonable case it is so clearly online piracy copyright infringement and you don’t want your organization and your members to be defending something so blatantly unlawful and unreasonable. So I just ask your members to block that site today.”

Chairman Darrell Issa ended the hearing by mentioning that the import of copyrighted and trademarked goods can be easily stopped by U.S. customs, suggesting that the same should apply to the ‘import’ of pirated goods online through sites such as Fmovies.

“For what’s possible in the tangible world, we want to find a solution in the Internet world. We will not quit under this committee until we do so,” Issa concluded.