Kimcartoon Shuts Down for Good, but Mirror Sites Keep Emerging

Kimcatoon has shut down, marking the end of an era for one of the most notorious anime piracy sites. This is also a huge blow to anime fans, especially given the disappearance of similar sites like Aniwave, in recent months.

Before shutting down, Kimcartoon was one of the most popular anime pirate sites, with over 11 million monthly visits. Therefore, it was a huge surprise (or perhaps not, given its notoriety) when users were notified that the site had been closed for good.

Below is a closer look at what led the site to shut down and the aftermath.

Kimcartoon shut down due to DMCA notices

Kimcartoon closed down around September 2024. The site posted a message on its latest domain, Kimcartoon.li, where they explained they were shutting down their operations for good due to DMCA.

At the time, the Kimcartoon.li domain was live, with the closure message on display. However, the domain has since disappeared for good from the internet.

It had endured several attempts to shut it down

Kimcartoon shutdown shocked many people as the site had weathered several attempts to close it down. In 2020, Disney secured a court order to block its previous domain, Kimcartoon.to, alongside other piracy sites in an Indian High court.

A few months later, Kimcartoon became the subject of DMCA subpoenas by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, which were served to Cloudflare and the Tonic domain registry. These subpoenas sought to uncover the identities of individuals behind piracy sites.

The attempted shutdowns did little to contain the rogue site, as it simply switched to a new domain, Kimcartoon.li.

Nonetheless, efforts to take down the site continued. According to data from Transparency Report, the new domain had received several DMCA notices to have it delisted from Google search engines.

Most of these notices came from copyright owners such as Disney, Warner Bros, Paramount, Viacom, NBCUniversal, Viacom, and others.

In 2023, there was a massive attempt to shut down the site, with the domain receiving over 4,000 DMCA notices in June alone. However, it continued operating undeterred until its death more than a year later.

Other illegal sites have faced a similar fate

Unfortunately for anime users, Kimcartoon is not the only site that has been shut down for offering pirated content. In August 2024, Aniwave was shut down for copyright violation.

A few months prior, an international anti-piracy operation in South Korea, Japan, and Brazil closed 16 illegal anime sites, including fan favorites like animehouse.net, meuanime.io, and animehouse.net.

Besides anime sites, several other pirate websites have been targeted worldwide in anti-piracy operations.

For example, in August 2024, several movies and TV shows pirate sites were targeted and shut down. These included popular domains like Fmovies, fboxz.to, bflixhd.to, 2flix.to, sflixtv.to, myflixerz2.to, and others, which amassed millions of monthly visits.

Several mirror sites have popped up to replace Kimcartoon

While the shutdown of Kimcartoon and other pirate sites is a huge victory in the fight against piracy, the war is far from over. As is usually the case, several other mirror sites emerged after Kimcartoon closed down to replace the rouge anime website.

These mirror sites include:

Some mirror sites have since gone dark, while others are up and running.

It is unclear whether the mirror domains are owned by previously shut down Kimcartoon or if they are new sites using the name to benefit from Kimcartoon’s notoriety.

It is also not uncommon for scammers to launch mirror domains of popular piracy sites that have been shut down in an attempt to run scams on unsuspecting victims.

What does Kimcartoon’s shutdown mean for pirate sites?

The shutdown of Kimcartoon and other popular sites like Aniwave and Fmovies has been a huge blow to the piracy industry. It also signals to similar rogue sites that their time is limited.

For the past several months, copyright holders and organizations like the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment have been waging an intensive war on piracy, and they have scored huge victories.

While the current shutdowns are unlikely to completely end piracy, they are a stark reminder that it is no longer tolerated.