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The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment says it was behind the sudden closure of MKVCinemas, a popular India-based streaming site that disappeared unexpectedly last month. As part of the same operation, ACE says it also shut down a "cloning tool" that enabled pirates to share content in private while evading takedowns. Factor in drama from the iBomma shutdown, and Indian pirates have had quite the month.
After spending just 20 minutes watching piracy-related uploads on Instagram during the past few weeks, the hard reality of the Indian piracy scene is impossible to ignore.
In the wake of enforcement action against iBomma, a sprawling streaming platform supposedly blocked back in 2022, it transpires that people refer to the site’s operator using his real name. The media describe Immadi Ravi as a piracy ‘kingpin’, yet to his hyper-enthusiastic fan base, he’s somewhat of a hero, someone to admire and defend.
Since the 39-year-old is reportedly still behind bars following his arrest at the hands of the Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police during November, the defense aspect may yet find itself put to the test.
iBomma Down, Bappam TV Down, Other Platforms Too
On November 15, Telangana police arrested Ravi after reportedly monitoring his activities for the previous three months. The authorities say he operated iBomma from the Caribbean but managed to apprehend him in Kukatpally, Hyderabad, after learning he’d be flying in from France. Ravi reportedly fled the country on October 1 after a case was filed against him.
At a post-arrest press conference attended by movie suits, directors, producers, and actors, the name and reputation of iBomma founder were placed on the line and then dragged through the mud.
The claim that Ravi had amassed the personal data of around 5 million users, provided a backdrop of data theft and cybercrime to which other details were soon revealed.
Ravi’s 21,000-title pirate movie library was slammed for its major contribution to the losses suffered by the industry. In 2024 alone, losses reportedly amounted to 3,700 crore; in U.S. dollars, that’s a significant amount of money: US$428 million, give or take.
Getting Rich, Making Mistakes
A student of computer science, Ravi reportedly pocketed Rs 30 crore (US$3.2 million) for himself, deposited in 35 bank accounts, held in cryptocurrency, and otherwise spent to fund a lavish lifestyle.
Yet, while massively successful, police implied that he wasn’t universally smart. When allegedly purchasing the initial iBomma domain from Njalla, the privacy-focused registrar founded by The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde, Ravi reportedly provided his real personal details and paid using a personal debit card.
“Since he used his own credentials, he cannot deny ownership of the domain,” ACP Srinivasulu said, perhaps forgetting that when acquiring a domain from Njalla, the service retains legal ownership – customers simply get to use them.
With the two named pirate operations out of action, other sites reportedly went dark too. That’s not unusual, since panic tends to spread rapidly when police start knocking on doors. In the early stages, it can be impossible for outsiders to differentiate between cautious downtime and the effects of a full blown raid. That doesn’t prevent people from trying to connect the dots, however.
iBomma and Bappam TV – Or Potentially More?
Describing a globe-trotting life and visits to new countries every week, Hyderabad Additional Commissioner of Police told reporters that Ravi regularly traveled overseas, including to meet with representatives of 1win and 1xBet, the gambling companies said to benefit from his pirate site businesses.
Officially reported as the operator of iBomma and Bappam TV, widespread unofficial claims state that Ravi was also behind pirate streaming platform MKVCinemas. The site reportedly went dark around the same time as iBomma and Bappam TV.
In a timely announcement issued Thursday, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment says it was responsible for the ‘dismantling’ of MKVCinemas and the shutdown of a “high-traffic drive-to-drive cloning tool” frequently used by piracy services in India and Indonesia.
“Collectively, the MKVCinemas domains accounted for 142.4 million global visits between 2024 and 2025. The piracy tool received 231.4 million visits in the same time period,” the ACE announcement reads.
“Following an extensive investigation, ACE identified the operator in Bihar, India, who agreed to shut down the operation and transfer 25 associated domains.”
Searching For Answers
There are at least dozens and conservatively well in excess of 100 MKVCinemas-branded domains, so when no domains are mentioned by name, determining which sites were shut down can prove challenging.
Ultimately, we were able to identify all 25 domains mentioned by ACE and a few others, all confirmed as linked to each other.
At the time of writing, eight domains have been fully transferred to ACE, but the number will almost certainly increase in the coming hours.
So are there any proven, likely, or even circumstantial links between MKVCinemas and iBomma?
Circumstantial Isn’t Good Enough, But India is a Very Big Place
We already knew that ACE was interested in MKVCinemas back in April 2025, as much was revealed in the documents supporting its application for a DMCA subpoena in the United States.
In India, ZeeTV obtained a blocking injunction (CS(COMM) 650/2022) against iBomma in 2022, which included an order to cancel registration of the domain zee5.org, which appears to have been designed to irritate more than anything else.
Whether ACE or ZeeTV discovered anything useful via the DMCA subpoena and injunction is unknown. That being said, a detail in the ACE statement seems like it could be important.
“Following an extensive investigation, ACE identified the operator in Bihar, India.”
In the wake of Ravi’s arrest, actor Konidela Chiranjeevi (known locally as Mega Star), fellow actor Nagarjuna Akkineni, and film director SS Rajamouli, met with Hyderabad city police commissioner VC Sajjanar. According to Indian Express, the men expressed their gratitude, with Chiranjeevi noting how movies had “suffered greatly” while pirates took money from the industry’s pockets.
“I heard a 22-year-old from Bihar was earning huge money through piracy. It’s unbearable,” he said.
Hardly conclusive, but we suspect things may be a little more bearable now.
After spending just 20 minutes watching piracy-related uploads on Instagram during the past few weeks, the hard reality of the Indian piracy scene is impossible to ignore.
In the wake of enforcement action against iBomma, a sprawling streaming platform supposedly blocked back in 2022, it transpires that people refer to the site’s operator using his real name. The media describe Immadi Ravi as a piracy ‘kingpin’, yet to his hyper-enthusiastic fan base, he’s somewhat of a hero, someone to admire and defend.
Since the 39-year-old is reportedly still behind bars following his arrest at the hands of the Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police during November, the defense aspect may yet find itself put to the test.
iBomma Down, Bappam TV Down, Other Platforms Too
On November 15, Telangana police arrested Ravi after reportedly monitoring his activities for the previous three months. The authorities say he operated iBomma from the Caribbean but managed to apprehend him in Kukatpally, Hyderabad, after learning he’d be flying in from France. Ravi reportedly fled the country on October 1 after a case was filed against him.
At a post-arrest press conference attended by movie suits, directors, producers, and actors, the name and reputation of iBomma founder were placed on the line and then dragged through the mud.
The claim that Ravi had amassed the personal data of around 5 million users, provided a backdrop of data theft and cybercrime to which other details were soon revealed.
Ravi’s 21,000-title pirate movie library was slammed for its major contribution to the losses suffered by the industry. In 2024 alone, losses reportedly amounted to 3,700 crore; in U.S. dollars, that’s a significant amount of money: US$428 million, give or take.
Getting Rich, Making Mistakes
A student of computer science, Ravi reportedly pocketed Rs 30 crore (US$3.2 million) for himself, deposited in 35 bank accounts, held in cryptocurrency, and otherwise spent to fund a lavish lifestyle.
Yet, while massively successful, police implied that he wasn’t universally smart. When allegedly purchasing the initial iBomma domain from Njalla, the privacy-focused registrar founded by The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde, Ravi reportedly provided his real personal details and paid using a personal debit card.
“Since he used his own credentials, he cannot deny ownership of the domain,” ACP Srinivasulu said, perhaps forgetting that when acquiring a domain from Njalla, the service retains legal ownership – customers simply get to use them.
With the two named pirate operations out of action, other sites reportedly went dark too. That’s not unusual, since panic tends to spread rapidly when police start knocking on doors. In the early stages, it can be impossible for outsiders to differentiate between cautious downtime and the effects of a full blown raid. That doesn’t prevent people from trying to connect the dots, however.
iBomma and Bappam TV – Or Potentially More?
Describing a globe-trotting life and visits to new countries every week, Hyderabad Additional Commissioner of Police told reporters that Ravi regularly traveled overseas, including to meet with representatives of 1win and 1xBet, the gambling companies said to benefit from his pirate site businesses.
Officially reported as the operator of iBomma and Bappam TV, widespread unofficial claims state that Ravi was also behind pirate streaming platform MKVCinemas. The site reportedly went dark around the same time as iBomma and Bappam TV.
In a timely announcement issued Thursday, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment says it was responsible for the ‘dismantling’ of MKVCinemas and the shutdown of a “high-traffic drive-to-drive cloning tool” frequently used by piracy services in India and Indonesia.
“Collectively, the MKVCinemas domains accounted for 142.4 million global visits between 2024 and 2025. The piracy tool received 231.4 million visits in the same time period,” the ACE announcement reads.
“Following an extensive investigation, ACE identified the operator in Bihar, India, who agreed to shut down the operation and transfer 25 associated domains.”
Searching For Answers
There are at least dozens and conservatively well in excess of 100 MKVCinemas-branded domains, so when no domains are mentioned by name, determining which sites were shut down can prove challenging.
Ultimately, we were able to identify all 25 domains mentioned by ACE and a few others, all confirmed as linked to each other.
At the time of writing, eight domains have been fully transferred to ACE, but the number will almost certainly increase in the coming hours.
So are there any proven, likely, or even circumstantial links between MKVCinemas and iBomma?
Circumstantial Isn’t Good Enough, But India is a Very Big Place
We already knew that ACE was interested in MKVCinemas back in April 2025, as much was revealed in the documents supporting its application for a DMCA subpoena in the United States.
Whether ACE or ZeeTV discovered anything useful via the DMCA subpoena and injunction is unknown. That being said, a detail in the ACE statement seems like it could be important.
“Following an extensive investigation, ACE identified the operator in Bihar, India.”
In the wake of Ravi’s arrest, actor Konidela Chiranjeevi (known locally as Mega Star), fellow actor Nagarjuna Akkineni, and film director SS Rajamouli, met with Hyderabad city police commissioner VC Sajjanar. According to Indian Express, the men expressed their gratitude, with Chiranjeevi noting how movies had “suffered greatly” while pirates took money from the industry’s pockets.
“I heard a 22-year-old from Bihar was earning huge money through piracy. It’s unbearable,” he said.
Hardly conclusive, but we suspect things may be a little more bearable now.