Disney, Universal, WB Sue to Unmask Piracy Site Operators

A coalition of major Hollywood studios filed a subpoena request in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on Feb. 13, seeking to compel Cloudflare to turn over the personal details of operators running 19 piracy websites, according to court filings first reported by TorrentFreak. The subpoena has not yet been signed by a court clerk.

The subpoena, filed on behalf of Disney Enterprises Inc., Paramount Pictures Corp., Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Universal City Studios LLC and Columbia Pictures Industries Inc., requests names, physical addresses, IP addresses, email addresses and payment histories from Cloudflare, which provides web-infrastructure services to the targeted domains.

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, the anti-piracy enforcement arm of the Motion Picture Association, brought the action under U.S. Code, Title 17. Larissa Knapp, the MPA's executive vice president and chief content protection officer, filed a declaration supporting the request.

The targeted domains include general movie and TV piracy platforms such as Cinego, Soap2day and Pelisflix. But the filing also names Anime4up (anime4up.rest), an Arabic-language anime piracy hub that court documents flagged for unauthorized distribution of series including Mob Psycho 100 and Hi Score Girl. The platform hosts hundreds of other titles.

Warner Bros. Japan sits on the production committee for both series, and its parent company controls the rights. Netflix, which licenses the shows and belongs to ACE, isn't explicitly named in the subpoena but would benefit from the site's removal.

How Anime and Movie Piracy Costs the Entertainment Industry Billions

Knapp said in her declaration that unauthorized streams directly harm creators and studios that invest hundreds of millions of dollars in original content. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry estimated that piracy of digital content — spanning anime, manga, games and related media — cost the country's content industry $38 billion in 2025, nearly triple the figure from 2022.

The subpoena could set the stage for civil lawsuits or criminal referrals against the site operators, once their identities are known.

Disney, Netflix and Warner Bros. Lead Global Anti-Piracy Crackdown

The Cloudflare subpoena is the latest move in a broader international crackdown that has accelerated in recent months.

In December 2025, a coalition that included Warner Bros., Netflix, Disney, Apple Inc. and Crunchyroll won an injunction in the Delhi High Court. Justice Tejas Karia ordered the blocking of dozens of piracy domains across India on Dec. 18.

In November 2025, Australian courts directed internet service providers to cut off access to 52 piracy websites. The order, handed down by Justice Halley on Nov. 12, took down major anime platforms including HiAnime (formerly AniWatch and Zoro.to), 9anime and Aniwave. MPA members pushed for the Australian action in part because they feared those platforms would illegally distribute the theatrical release of Wicked: For Good, according to court filings.

The enforcement victories haven't stopped new sites from appearing. When courts shut down a piracy domain, operators frequently launch mirror sites under different URLs. Legal observers are watching the Cloudflare subpoena closely to see whether unmasking the people behind these operations proves more effective than blocking the sites themselves.