How MissAVWS Survived a Major Domain Seizure

MissAVWS is the replacement domain for MissAV, one of the world’s largest adult piracy platforms. After FANZA and Will Co. LTD secured a U.S. federal court order to seize MissAV.com in January 2025, the platform migrated to MissAV.ws within hours. VeriSign, the .com registry operator, transferred domain control to the plaintiff as directed by the court. The MissAVWS domain, registered under the .ws country-code top-level domain managed by SamoaNIC in Samoa, now handles the platform’s full traffic load.

MissAV Traffic and Global Ranking Before the MissAVWS Domain Shift

MissAV recorded over 300 million monthly visits before the January 2025 enforcement action. That volume placed it inside the global top 60 websites by traffic. In Japan, the platform ranked within the top 15 most-visited sites, driven by its library of uncensored Japanese adult videos.

Semrush data from late 2025 recorded 126.5 million visits to the .ws domain alone. The platform draws a primarily Asian audience, with heavy traffic from Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

How FANZA and Will Co. Forced the MissAV Domain Seizure

FANZA, a subsidiary of the Japanese internet conglomerate DMM, restricts its paid adult content to Japan-based users. That geographic restriction pushed overseas audiences toward free, unauthorized platforms like MissAV. FANZA and Will Co. LTD, a Japanese adult content producer, viewed MissAV as a direct commercial threat. Major Japanese technology companies have long struggled with protecting intellectual property in the digital space.

Will Co. filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The complaint named Hong Kong-linked defendants including Ka Yeung Lee and Youhaha Marketing, Promotion Limited. The defense challenged U.S. jurisdiction, arguing that the operators had no connection to the country. The court disagreed and allowed the case to proceed.

In a default judgment, the court awarded $4.5 million in damages for 300 proven copyright infringements. The original claim sought $45 million, but the court settled on one-tenth of that amount. The judgment also granted Will Co. control of several domains, including MissAV.com and ThisAV.com, through VeriSign, the .com domain registry.

MissAVWS Domain Recovery: How MissAV.ws Went Live in Hours

Visitors to MissAV.com and ThisAV.com saw multilingual seizure banners after the enforcement action. The warnings stated that the domains hosted illegally uploaded content and reminded users that copyright infringement carries criminal penalties. Japanese visitors received an additional banner promoting FANZA’s paid services.

The disruption lasted hours, not days. Both seized domains began redirecting traffic to MissAV.ws, the MissAVWS address, almost immediately.

Technical records tell the story. Before the seizure, MissAV.com used Cloudflare’s nameservers for DNS resolution and DDoS protection. After the enforcement action, those nameservers switched to ones managed by Namecheap, the domain registrar. One likely explanation: Cloudflare received a legal order to act against the domains. The site operators, who retained registrar-level access through Namecheap, simply removed Cloudflare’s nameservers and pointed the original domains toward MissAVWS instead.

Why the .ws Domain Protects MissAVWS From U.S. Courts

The .com top-level domain falls under U.S. jurisdiction because VeriSign, the .com registry operator, is an American company. That legal structure allowed FANZA to petition an American court to seize MissAV.com.

The .ws extension is a country-code top-level domain administered by SamoaNIC, under Samoa’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. U.S. and European enforcement bodies have no direct authority over .ws registrations. If FANZA wants to go after MissAVWS at the domain level, it would need to bring a case before Samoan courts—a far more complicated process than filing in Washington state.

The operators also registered an additional .ai domain, governed by the Anguilla Domain Administration in the Caribbean. This dual-domain approach provides another fallback option if the .ws address faces enforcement pressure.

Cloudflare’s Role in the MissAV Piracy Takedown

Cloudflare provided CDN and DDoS protection services to MissAV before the seizure. The company has faced ongoing scrutiny from rights holders across the entertainment industry. Japanese publishers Shueisha, Kodansha, Shogakukan, and Kadokawa won a copyright lawsuit against Cloudflare in November 2025 over its services to manga piracy sites, with the Tokyo District Court recognizing approximately $24 million in damages.

In the MissAV case, Cloudflare’s nameservers were replaced after the enforcement action. The platform’s operators appear to have maintained control throughout the transition, switching DNS providers without losing access to their infrastructure.

What Happens Next for MissAVWS and Anti-Piracy Enforcement

Battleship Stance, the anti-piracy firm that assisted Will Co., confirmed further enforcement efforts targeting the new domains. Jason Tucker, the firm’s president, stated that legal actions are already underway against MissAVWS. The .ws domain was briefly locked at one point before access was restored.

The pattern is familiar across digital piracy enforcement. Rights holders secure court orders, and platforms adapt by switching to domains outside the enforcing country’s reach. Each domain change buys time for operators but introduces instability for users. Search engines may take weeks to fully index new addresses, fragmenting traffic with every migration.

FANZA and other content producers clearly view MissAVWS as an ongoing priority. But as of early 2026, MissAVWS continues to operate without apparent interruption. The broader contest between rights holders and pirate platforms remains unresolved, with enforcement strategies still relying heavily on domain-level actions that these platforms have shown they can work around.

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