After an eight-year effort, a major pirated movie and TV series streaming operation based in Vietnam has been shut down, according to a global antipiracy group.

Hanoi-based Fmovies and its associated sites drew nearly 374 million monthly visits, with more than 6.7 billion visits alone between January 2023 and this June. With hundreds of online domains, it was the largest pirate streaming operation in the world, according to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, an antipiracy group that worked in collaboration with the Hanoi police to shut down Fmovies.

“The Fmovies takedown is honestly a global turning point for us,” said Charlie Rivkin, chair of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment and chairman and chief executive of the Motion Picture Assn. trade group, which shares resources and expertise with the alliance. “It should send a signal to other piracy operators around the world that they’re going to face justice for violating copyright laws. We’re going to find them. We’re going to take them down.”

Representatives for Fmovies could not be reached for comment.

After launching in 2016, Fmovies was quickly met with legal action. Filipino media company ABS-CBN sued the site just months after its debut, alleging copyright infringement. A California court ordered the operation to pay $218,000 in damages and shut down, but it continued operating.

In August, the site was taken down by Vietnamese authorities.

Two Vietnamese men were identified as the operators of Fmovies, and a Vietnamese court has agreed to pursue the legal case against them. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment did not disclose the men’s names or other details of the operation.

“The Vietnamese movie industry is at a pivotal stage of development, transitioning from a state-subsidized production model to a rapidly growing phase driven by private-sector involvement,” Ngo Phuong Lan, chair of the Vietnam Film Development Assn., said in a statement. “Intellectual property rights protection is a crucial element for our industry’s success.”

Composed of major studios and media companies such as Paramount Global, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has shut down several high-traffic piracy operations around the world in the last year.

In December, the group shut down more than 600 piracy sites in Latin America, including more than 320 in Peru. One month earlier, the coalition shut down an operation in Egypt with 65 domains that counted 29 million monthly visits.

Copyright theft remains a major headache for the entertainment industry. The unauthorized release of a movie before its theatrical debut can decrease box office revenue by as much as 20%.

And with box office sales not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, and studios shedding jobs due to massive overspending on streaming efforts, those revenue declines can be key, Rivkin said. Earlier this year, he estimated that, on average, piracy costs the movie theater business more than $1 billion per year.

“Piracy is an existential threat to our business,” Rivkin said. “It’s in everybody’s best interest to curb piracy; for the theaters, for the creatives, for our studios.”

A controversial bill that would require developers of advanced AI models to adopt safety measures is one step closer to becoming law.

The bill, SB 1047, would require developers of future advanced AI models to create guardrails to prevent the technology from being misused to conduct cyberattacks on critical infrastructure such as power plants.

Developers would need to submit their safety plans to the attorney general, who could hold them liable if AI models they directly control were to cause harm or imminent threat to public safety.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), passed the state Assembly on Wednesday, with 41 votes in favor and nine opposed. On Thursday, the measure was approved by the state Senate in a concurrence vote. It now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, though it’s unclear whether Newsom will sign or veto the bill.

“Innovation and safety can go hand in hand — and California is leading the way,” Wiener said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Newsom said the governor will evaluate the bill when it reaches his desk.

Wiener’s bill was fiercely debated in the Bay Area’s tech community. It received support from the Center for AI Safety, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, the L.A. Times editorial board and San Francisco-based AI startup Anthropic.

But it was opposed by Democratic congressional leaders as well as prominent AI players including Meta and OpenAI, who raised concerns about whether the legislation would stifle innovation in California.

Democratic congressional leaders, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San José), have also opposed the bill and urged Newsom to veto it. They argue the legislation could hurt California’s growing AI industry, home to ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and cite efforts Congress is making related to AI.

“There is a real risk that companies will decide to incorporate in other jurisdictions or simply not release models in California,” Khanna, Lofgren and six other Democratic congressional representatives wrote in a letter to Newsom.

“While we want California to lead in AI in a way that protects consumers, data, intellectual property and more, SB 1047 is more harmful than helpful in that pursuit,” Pelosi said in a statement.

Wiener and other legislators supporting the bill disagree, contending it would foster innovation while also protecting the public.

“You have to put guardrails,” Assemblymember Devon Mathis (R-Visalia) said before the Assembly’s vote on Wednesday afternoon. “We have to make sure they are going to be responsible players.”

Proponents of SB 1047 say it requires developers to be responsible for the safety of advanced AI models in their control, which could help prevent catastrophic AI events in the future.

“I worry that technology companies will not solve the significant risks associated with AI on their own because they’re locked in their race for market share and profit maximization,” Yoshua Bengio, a professor at Université de Montréal and the founder and scientific director of Mila — Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, said at a media briefing this week. “We simply can’t let them grade their own homework and hope for the best.”

Backers also say AI should be regulated similar to other industries that pose potential safety risks.

“This is a tough call and will make some people upset, but, all things considered, I think California should probably pass the SB 1047 AI safety bill,” Musk wrote on X on Monday. “For over 20 years, I have been an advocate for AI regulation, just as we regulate any product/technology that is a potential risk to the public.”

Earlier this month, the bill passed a key state Senate committee after Wiener made significant changes, including removing a perjury penalty and changing the legal standard for developers regarding the safety of their advanced AI models.

San Francisco-based AI startup Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, said he believed the bill’s “benefits likely outweigh its costs” in an Aug. 21 letter to Newsom. The letter did not endorse the bill but shared the company’s viewpoint on the pros and cons.

“We want to be clear … that SB 1047 addresses real and serious concerns with catastrophic risk in AI systems,” Amodei wrote. “AI systems are advancing in capabilities extremely quickly, which offers both great promise for California’s economy and substantial risk.”

But some tech companies including OpenAI said they opposed the bill even after the changes.

“The broad and significant implications of AI for U.S. competitiveness and national security require that regulation of frontier models be shaped and implemented at the federal level,” OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon wrote in an Aug. 21 letter to Wiener. “A federally-driven set of AI policies, rather than a patchwork of state laws, will foster innovation and position the U.S. to lead the development of global standards.”

Wiener said he would welcome a strong federal AI safety law that preempts his bill.

“If past experience is any indication, enacting such a [federal] law will be an uphill fight,” Wiener said in a statement. “In the meantime, California should continue to lead on policies like SB 1047 that foster innovation while also protecting the public.”

SB 1047 is among roughly 50 AI-related bills in the Legislature that address various aspects of the technology’s impact on the public, including jobs, deepfakes and safety.

Allstate has received approval to raise its California homeowners insurance premiums by an average of 34% starting in November — the largest rate increase this year amid the state’s insurance crisis.

The rate increase approved this month by state regulators affects more than 350,000 policyholders statewide and exceeds a 30% increase sought in June by State Farm, the state’s largest homeowners insurer. That request is still under review.

The sixth-largest homeowners insurer in the state, Allstate first filed for a 39.6% rate increase last year and in January amended its request to 34.1%, according to the state Department of Insurance.

“This home insurance rate approval allows us to continue protecting our existing customers as we work with the California Department of Insurance to improve coverage availability and create a more viable and sustainable homeowners insurance market for consumers in the state,” Allstate said in a statement that cited higher home values and repair costs and more severe weather as causes of the rate increase.

The rate hike also includes discounts for homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risks on their properties, the company noted.

Allstate stopped writing new California homeowners insurance policies in November 2022, citing such challenges. But as part of this increase, the company agreed to not engage in mass nonrenewals of policies through the end of January, the department said.

The suspensions of nonrenewals was a three-party agreement among Allstate, the department and Consumer Watchdog, a Los Angeles consumer advocacy group that had opposed the rate increase but changed its position.

Carmen Balber, executive director of the group, said as inflation and reconstruction costs have continued to rise since Allstate’s original filing, the group concluded the increase was warranted.

“That 34% rate increase was actually justified due to the company’s costs, as much as we don’t like to stomach that,” she said.

The company is among multiple California home insurers that have pulled back from the market and sought rate increases in recent years, citing the rising severity of wildfires and other factors.

In its rate request in June, State Farm cited an obscure provision of the state insurance code that typically indicates an insurer is facing serious financial issues — even though State Farm received a 6.9% increase in January 2023 and a 20% boost that went into effect in March.

Also in March, State Farm announced that it would not renew 72,000 property owner policies statewide, joining Farmers, Allstate and other companies in either not writing or limiting new policies or tightening underwriting standards.

The decision by State Farm to not renew the policies despite receiving its 20% rate increase was a key factor in prompting Consumer Watchdog to seek a moratorium on nonrenewals from Allstate, Balber said.

The rising costs and lack of availability of homeowners insurance have created a crisis in California’s market.

With the support of Gov. Gavin Newsom, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara is seeking to stabilize the market through a series of executive actions called the Sustainable Insurance Strategy that should be in place by year’s end.

They are the biggest changes to California’s insurance regulations since Proposition 103 passed in 1988, providing for an elected insurance commissioner with authority to block rate increases.

The executive actions include allowing insurers to factor the cost of reinsurance they buy to protect themselves from catastrophes into the price of homeowners policies.

Rates also could include the estimated costs of future wildfires as identified by complex computer models, instead of determining rates simply through past claims data.

In April, an Allstate executive said at a state hearing that if the plan is adopted, the company would once again start writing new policies in California, assuming its approved rates were adequate. It reiterated that commitment in its statement Thursday.