123Movies, GoMovies, GoStream, MeMovies or 123movieshub was a network of file streaming websites operating from Vietnam which allowed users to watch films for free. It was called the world's "most popular illegal site" by the

Motion Picture Association of America The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distrib ...

(MPAA) in March 2018, before being shut down a few weeks later on foot of a criminal investigation by the Vietnamese authorities. , the network is still active via clone sites.

Development

The site went through several name changes after being shut down from different domains; sometimes the name appeared as "123Movies", and other times as "123movies". The original name, and URL, was 123movies.to, which changed to other domains including 123movies.is before redirecting to gomovies.to and later gomovies.is. It was changed to gostream.is, and then to memovies.to, before changing to 123movieshub.to/is and remaining there until shutdown. In October 2016, the MPAA listed 123Movies in its ''Online Notorious Markets'' overview to the

Office of the United States Trade Representative The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is an agency of the United States federal government responsible for developing and promoting American trade policy. Part of the Executive Office of the President, it is headed by the ...

(USTR), stating that: "The site has a global Alexa rank of 559 and a local rank of 386 in the U.S. 123movies.to had 9.26 million worldwide unique visitors in August 2016 according to SimilarWeb data". In October 2016, ''

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...

'' reported that 123movies.to was the "most-used pirate website" in the United Kingdom. 123Movies included HD, HD-RIP,

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

and

camera A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with ...

qualities of films. The video hosters and players it used included Openload, Streamango, and MyCloud. During its existence and shutdown period, the site was covered by ''

TorrentFreak __NOTOC__ TorrentFreak (TF) is a blog dedicated to reporting the latest news and trends on the BitTorrent protocol and file sharing, as well as on copyright infringement and digital rights. The website was started in November 2005 by a Dutchma ...

'' regarding its features, uptime/downtime, shutdown, and reasons for shutdown. In December 2017, the creators of 123movies launched another streaming site dedicated to

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

, named AnimeHub.to, which remained online for months after 123Movies's shutdown.

Shutdown

In March 2017,

reported that the US ambassador to Vietnam,

Ted Osius Theodore George Osius III (born 1961) is an American diplomat and the former United States Ambassador to Vietnam. Early life and education Osius grew up in Annapolis, Maryland. He attended The Putney School in Vermont, graduating in 1979. Osiu ...

, had been in talks with the local Minister of Information and Communications, Truong Minh Tuan, about shutting down illegal video streaming sites operating from Vietnam, and listed 123movies as one specific site. In October 2017, the MPAA listed 123Movies (and GoStream.is) in its ''Online Notorious Markets'' overview to the

, stating that while the site was technically hosted from

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...

that: "The site takes numerous steps to hide the identity of the operator, including using

Cloudflare Cloudflare, Inc. is an American content delivery network and DDoS mitigation company, founded in 2009. It primarily acts as a reverse proxy between a website's visitor and the Cloudflare customer's hosting provider. Its headquarters are in Sa ...

, but there is strong reason to believe the operator is still in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...

; content is uploaded using cyberlockers from numerous email accounts originating from Can Tho University of Medicine and Pharmacy". In March 2018, the MPAA said that the site was the "most popular illegal site in the world", stated it was operated from Vietnam and estimated that it received 98 million visitors per month. On 19 March 2018, a note on the site's home page announced its shutdown, and urged users to "respect filmmakers by paying for movies and TV-shows".

Reappearance

In October 2018, the MPAA's update on ''Online Notorious Markets'' to the United States Trade Representative, said that the closure of 123movies, 123movieshub, gostream, and gomovies, on foot of a criminal investigation in Vietnam in 2018, was "an important development" in combatting illegal film piracy services. However, the MPAA report also noted that numerous copycat sites had emerged in at least eight other countries. In November 2018 ''TorrentFreak'' reported sites connected or similar to 123Movies such as ''WatchAsap'' had also been shut down by the FBI, but were re-directing to other file sharing sites. While the website was blocked in India, numerous clones proliferated in India in 2018.

Notes

References

External links