Digital piracy continues to grow, with several illegal streaming sites popping up every other day. One of the most notorious of these sites is Soap2Day, a platform that allows users to stream copyrighted movies and TV shows for free.
Like many illegal streaming sites, the platform has been the subject of several crackdown attempts by authorities. However, it has survived these attempts, with new mirror sites popping up to replace it when one domain is taken down.
Below is a detailed look at the rise of Soap2Day, the repeated efforts by anti-piracy and law enforcement agents to shut the site down, how it has survived, and what this means to digital piracy and the streaming industry.
The rise of Soap2Day
Soap2Day entered the illegal streaming scene sometime in the mid-2010s. Like most pirate sites, it began offering a vast library of movies and TV shows from top content distributors, allowing users to watch them for free and without requiring an account.
By 2020, the website had gained significant traction, with tens of millions of visits, elevating it to the level of other notorious piracy websites like 123movies, FMovies, and Putlocker.
However, Soap2Day’s popularity also drew the attention of copyright owners and anti-piracy enforcement agencies, prompting a concerted effort to shut down the platform.
Soap2Day has survived repeated attempts to shut it down
Soap2Day has been the target of several crackdown attempts over the years. In 2020, online reports emerged that Google had delisted the original Soap2Day website from its search results.
Some users claimed that the site had been delisted due to wrong copyright claims by the owners of the soap opera “Soap2Day.” However, other users were quick to point out that the site was full of copyrighted content.
Despite the delisting, Soap2Day survived, with several mirror domains appearing on the internet. The site continued to operate until June 2023, when its owners announced they were permanently shutting it down.
When making the announcement, the site’s operators did not announce the reason for the shutdown. However, it later emerged that several copyright holders, including Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros, and Paramount, had taken legal action against the site in Canada.
At the time of the shutdown, Soap2Day was at its peak, reportedly receiving around 108 million monthly visits. However, as with past crackdown efforts, the illegal site survived, with several mirror domains popping up to replace those that authorities have taken down.
Besides the 2023 shutdown attempt, Soap2Day had been subject to other unsuccessful crackdown attempts.
For example, in 2022, Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) obtained a subpoena targeting illegal streaming sites, including Soap2Day.
Then, in 2024, copyright owners obtained a blocking order targeting several pirate streaming websites, including mirror domains like soap2day-online.com, soap2dayto.io, thesoap2day.com, and soap2day.tel.
Anti-piracy efforts against the illegal site have intensified
Copyright owners and anti-piracy organizations have intensified the fight against Soap2Day in recent months, especially after the platform survived several attempts to shut it down.
One of the new measures anti-piracy authorities are taking against the illegal site is the issuance of dynamic blocking orders. These orders usually target infrastructure used by pirate sites, such as IP addresses, DNS resolvers, and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs).
Dynamic blocking orders also allow copyright holders to identify and direct ISPs to block new domains or servers associated with the original illegal website, thereby tackling any new mirror sites that may emerge.
In the case of Soap2Day, several copyright holders, including Netflix, Disney, and Bell Media, obtained a dynamic blocking order against the pirated site in January 2025.
The order, issued by a Canadian Federal Court judge, directed ISPs to block existing Soap2Day websites and any other “copycats” that copyright holders identify in the future.
The judge also ordered the site operators, identified as John Does, to pay $22 million to copyright owners.
Soap2Day (alongside other pirated sites) was the target of another dynamic blocking order in November 2025, this time by an Australian Federal Court. The order, obtained by Universal Studios, differed from other blocking orders in that it focused on one title: Wicked: For Good.
Additionally, the Australian blocking order targeted Soap2Day and other illegal sites in advance, based on the belief that Wicked: For Good would appear on those platforms once released.
Soap2Day is unlikely to shut down in the near future
While crackdowns on Soap2Day have intensified, the illegal platform is unlikely to be taken down anytime soon. After all, the site has survived numerous attempts since 2020.
One reason the illegal site has survived so long is the use of mirror sites, which pop up whenever an existing site is blocked or shut down. This has led to a never-ending game of “whack-a-mole” with copyright owners and anti-piracy agencies.
The site operators have also managed to remain anonymous, thereby avoiding direct consequences for their illegal activities.
Additionally, some of the Soap2Day sites popping up are likely copycat sites. Therefore, copyright owners and anti-piracy organizations are likely fighting against multiple unknown operators of illegal sites.
For now, it is unclear if the blocking orders against Soap2Day will successfully shut down the site. Site blocking, especially dynamic blocking, has proven to be effective at taking down illegal sites, albeit temporarily in most cases.
However, some critics argue that site blocking is not the most effective way to tackle piracy, particularly because of factors such as additional infrastructure investments by ISPs and the creative ways illegal site operators use to bypass blocks.