The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has shut down 42 websites for the pirated streaming of televised soccer games and live TV, seizing their domains and taking down the illegal streaming services.
The now-defunct websites accumulated over 308 million visits in the past six months. Due to the upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, set to begin on November 20, 2022, interest was growing steadily.
Two notable pirate platforms, “futbollibre.net” and “televisionlibre.net,” had 42.9 million and 7.9 million monthly visitors, respectively.
All 42 websites were operated by an Argentinian man and drew the majority of their traffic from the Latin American country, offering unauthorized streams of live matches of the Argentine Professional Soccer League, LaLiga, UEFA Champions League, and more.
The sites had links to live feeds from channels that had secured a license to legally broadcast the sports events, causing substantial financial damage to those media groups.
Customers of those illegal platforms secured their access to live match feeds by paying a monthly or yearly subscription fee, which they have lost now due to the seizure.
“The successful takedown of this major sports piracy ring marks significant progress as ACE expands its live-tier operations and efforts to combat illegal sports piracy,” stated the Head of ACE, Jan van Voorn.
“With the World Cup just a few weeks away, the coalition is sharply focused on live piracy, which poses a serious threat to sports leagues and fans around the world.”
Visitors of the seized domains are now redirected to ACE’s “Watch Legally” portal, which contains links to legal content distribution channels from the coalition’s members.
ACE has also taken control over the website’s Twitter and Instagram accounts, where they have made posts about the takeover.
— Televisión Libre (@tele_libre) November 1, 2022
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment is a subsidiary of the Motion Picture Association and the most powerful private anti-piracy coalition in the world.
Its board members are Amazon, Apple, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount, Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros.
The organization works closely with international law enforcement entities, such as the Department of Justice, Europol, and Interpol, to conduct these actions.
