The illicit operation affected all ACE members, including ACE’s sports tier members beIN Sports, Canal+ and DAZN.
Anti-piracy coalition the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has shut down a notorious live sports piracy ring based in Vietnam, and viewed extensively across the world.
The operation’s illicit sites logged 812 million visits over the past 12 months, making it one of the largest sports piracy rings in the world. It is also the largest sports piracy ring taken down by ACE to date. The shuttered sites include notorious sports piracy targets such as bestsolaris[dot]com, streameast[dot]to; markkystreams[dot]com; crackstreams[dot]dev; and weakspell[dot]to.
Following an intensive, global investigation, ACE identified and approached the sites’ Hanoi-based operators, who agreed to immediately transfer 138 domains to ACE.
Speaking about the takedown, Larissa Knapp, Executive Vice President and Chief Content Protection Officer for the Motion Picture Association (MPA), said: “The shutdown of this globally notorious live sports piracy ring is a huge victory in our campaign against the piracy of live sports programmes and follows other recent successful actions by ACE and law enforcement in Vietnam. ACE’s live sports members face a unique threat when it comes to digital piracy, as live sports broadcasts lose substantial commercial value once the game ends. The takedown serves as a warning to piracy operators everywhere – including operators in live sports piracy – that ACE will identify and shut down their illegal operations.”
Primarily targeting audiences in the U.S. and Canada, the sites streamed sports events daily, including content from all the US sports leagues and global leagues of every category. The illicit operation affected all ACE members, including ACE’s sports tier members beIN Sports, Canal+ and DAZN.
All sites will now be redirecting to the ACE ‘Watch Legally’ page.
