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Milestone Action Was First Successful APK-Focused Shutdown in Region
LOS ANGELES, March 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s leading anti‑piracy coalition, has successfully shut down AnimePlay, one of the largest illicit anime streaming applications operating in the Asia-Pacific region. The application was run out of Riau, Indonesia.
AnimePlay had amassed more than 5 million registered users, primarily in Indonesia, and was hosting over 60 terabytes of infringing content. The operator admitted to being both the developer and sole administrator of the piracy service since its launch in 2020. He surrendered the complete backend ecosystem powering the operation to ACE, including 29 GitHub repositories containing full source code, backend servers, associated databases, and integrated advertising tools.
"By securing both the AnimePlay application and the infrastructure that supported it, this action removed a sophisticated piracy network that siphoned value from creators and legitimate businesses across the region," said Larissa Knapp, Executive Vice President and Chief Content Protection Officer for the Motion Picture Association (MPA). "We will continue working with our partners across the Asia‑Pacific region and globally to dismantle criminal operations like this and safeguard the integrity of the creative economy."
ACE secured control of not just the application, but also its underlying infrastructure, including 15 associated domains, source code, hosting environment, and related digital assets, all of which have now been taken offline. In so doing, ACE has effectively dismantled the operation and restricted the operator’s ability to rebuild or relaunch the service.
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.
