Although streaming television platforms are more heavily visited by viewers than ever before, illegal piracy websites have them beat. According to a anime piracy streaming website received more monthly visitors than one of the most popular streaming services worldwide.

In the United States, major streaming service Disney+ was less frequented than piracy website HiAnime.to, and its number of monthly visits is only continuing to grow. The growing acceptance of illegal piracy platforms such as these is causing many major animation studios to become concerned and resort to more drastic measures, working with search engines, anti-piracy groups, and even the government to take down these offending websites.

HiAnime.to Receives More Monthly Visitors Than Disney+, Peacock, and GitHub

In 2024, the Illegal Streaming Platform Saw Unprecedented Levels of Traffic; Over 300 Million Visits Monthly

HiAnime.to, a website that features everything from niche anime series to major properties like Attack on Titan and Jujutsu Kaisen, experienced unprecedented growth in 2024, especially in the United States. In November 2024 alone, there were 331.6 million visits made to the website, and there was even greater traffic in previous months. Crunchyroll, the biggest legal anime-specific streaming service, does not even receive this number of visits monthly. HiAnime.to actually boasts over three times the monthly visits Crunchyroll does, making it abundantly clear that many people are using illegal alternatives rather than paid streaming services to access their favorite animes.

Not only did HiAnime.to receive more monthly visitors than Disney+ in 2024, it also sured Peacock TV, NBC's streaming platform, and GitHub, a software development website, and ranked just under Xfinity and Hulu. An illegal streaming platform becoming more popular than established legal websites is a shocking development that proves piracy can no longer be ignored because millions are interacting with pirated content on a daily basis. Piracy is a worldwide issue, but 40% of HiAnime.to visitors are based in the United States and are between the ages of 18 to 24, making this one of the website's largest demographics.

By Rebranding, Piracy Websites Can Continue Stealthily Operating for Years

9anime Changed Its Name to Aniwave, and This Allowed It To Continue Operating for Years

Although no immediate action is being taken to shut down HiAnime.to anytime soon, major companies are striking back against these illegal pirates with legal action and copyright claims. In recent weeks, Japan's Content Overseas Distribution Association, abbreviated as CODA, closed down Rine.cloud, which was one of the most visited anime piracy websites in Brazil and received 2.74 million monthly viewers on average. Massive animation studios Toei Animation Co., Ltd., Toho Co., Ltd., and Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc. were behind the piracy website's shutdown, revealing the fact that companies do not take lightly to pirates illegally distributing the content they have created.

TorrentFreak noted that removing these websites from the internet for good is not as clear-cut as one might think, because often, when one illegal streaming platform is forced to close, they simply stealthily reopen later under a completely different domain name. By changing website names frequently, anime and manga piracy websites can fly under the radar and continue operating for years, earning millions of dollars off of stolen content. For example, a website by the name of 9anime was rebranded to Aniwave, and although Aniwave eventually closed too, remarketing allowed it to run for much longer than it would have otherwise.

Anime’s Biggest Companies Like Viz Media and Toei Animation Are Fighting Piracy

Although Piracy Websites Continue Sneakily Remarketing Themselves, Anti-Piracy Organizations Refuse To Give Up

The very active anti-piracy organization, ACE, has brought many of these illegal pirates to justice, but their work is far from over. In TorrentFreak's article, HiAnime.to's complicated journey as a pirating website was discussed, including just how many times they have completely revamped their website to hide from the law. The platform started out as Zoro.to, but was shut down in 2023, and returned as Aniwatch. After Aniwatch was caught and closed again by ACE, they changed their name one more time, and are now known as HiAnime.to, so it is a matter of time before ACE takes action again.

The fight between anime piracy websites and anti-piracy organizations is becoming an extremely tough battle, and neither side is backing down, making the future of piracy in the anime industry uncertain.

Source: TorrentFreak