With strong encouragement from Hollywood and affiliated anti-piracy groups, Malaysia ramped up its site-blocking measures in 2021. A recent government report reveals that between 2021 and November 2024, authorities blocked 3,682 pirate sites to prevent unauthorized exploitation of local content. While this might sound impressive, after 15 years of blocking, the real question remains: Has it actually worked? And if so, who has benefited?
A History of Site Blocking in Malaysia
Malaysia was once a favored location for hosting pirate sites, thanks to its strong infrastructure and lack of enforcement. That changed in 2008/2009 when the government began shutting down popular torrent sites like Extremebits, Rapthe, Superfundo, and LeechersLair. A BitTorrent tracker owner even discovered that a device had been secretly collecting data from his server.
Initially linked to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), these physical shutdowns were followed by a major policy shift in 2011. After previously vowing not to censor the internet, the government announced it would block major pirate sites, including The Pirate Bay, Megaupload, Megavideo, Movie2k, and Putlocker. This list, heavily focused on Hollywood targets, signaled Malaysia’s growing commitment to copyright enforcement.
No Turning Back: Escalating Site Blocks
By 2017, blocking had become routine. A Motion Picture Association (MPA) report, How Site Blocking in Malaysia Has Significantly Reduced Online Piracy, claimed that traffic to blocked sites had dropped by 67% to 74% within six months of six blocking waves.
However, every success led to new challenges. As unblocked sites rose to meet demand, authorities responded with even more blocking. In 2019, 438 sites were blocked, followed by 644 in 2020 and 347 in 2021. The total reached 1,429 sites, but the true nature of these numbers—whether they represented unique sites, clones, or proxy domains—remains unclear.
Blocking as a Continuous Cycle
Malaysia’s history with site-blocking follows a familiar pattern seen worldwide:
- The First Blocking Request is Never the Last: The U.S. SOPA debacle showed that public acceptance of site blocking requires careful strategy. Malaysia, which appeared on the USTR’s Priority Watch List in 2000 and 2001, was moved to a less severe Watch List in 2002 and removed entirely in 2012—coinciding with its increasing enforcement efforts.
- Each Blocking Success Leads to More Requests: The 2017 MPA report celebrated Malaysia’s site-blocking efforts, and soon after, blocking expanded dramatically. By 2020, a study from the Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA) claimed Malaysia had achieved a 64% decline in pirate streaming access.
Over 3,600 Pirate Sites Blocked Since 2021
A recent announcement from Malaysia’s Ministry of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living (KPDN) reveals that 3,682 additional pirate sites have been blocked between 2021 and November 2024. Minister Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali emphasized the government’s commitment to protecting local creative industries, with ongoing collaboration between KPDN, MCMC, and ISPs.
With more than 5,100 sites blocked since 2019, the key question remains: Has this effort yielded positive results? If the reported decline in pirate site traffic is accurate, piracy should have been significantly reduced. However, with no clear progress report on how this impacts local content creators, skepticism lingers.