LOS ANGELES – The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s largest and most effective anti-piracy coalition, today announced settlements with three U.S.-based illegal IPTV operators. As part of the settlements, the operators are required to pay over $2 million in financial compensation to ACE.
Working with its studio members, last year ACE identified the operators of the services that were illegally distributing thousands of movies and television shows and began taking enforcement action. After being confronted by ACE and threatened with potential legal action, the operators agreed to pay financial compensation, shutter their illegal services permanently, cooperate with ACE, and transfer their services’ domains.
The illicit services include Anytime TV, Cobra Servers, Elite Servers, and Lost Highway Media, each of which was engaged in mass copyright infringement. These piracy services collectively had thousands of subscribers and received hundreds of thousands of domain visits annually. Among the domains that will be transferred to ACE as part of the settlements are anytimetv.us, anytimewebhosting.com, elite-servers.com, losthighway-media.com, and webhostsupply.com.
“These landmark settlements should serve as a warning to illegal streaming operators about the severe penalties they will face for breaking copyright law, including legal actions, substantial financial settlements and fines, and jail time,” said Larissa Knapp, Executive Vice President and Chief Content Protection Officer for the Motion Picture Association. “Although the multimillion-dollar settlements may seem significant, this figure still represents only a fraction of the losses caused by copyright infringement. The theft of digital content harms both local and foreign economies, threatens jobs, undermines investment, reduces tax contributions to governments, and stifles creativity.”
About The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) is the world’s leading coalition dedicated to protecting the legal creative market and reducing digital piracy. Driven by a comprehensive approach to addressing piracy through criminal referrals, civil litigation, and cease-and-desist operations, ACE has achieved many successful global enforcement actions against illegal streaming services and unauthorized content sources and their operators. Drawing upon the collective expertise and resources of more than 50 media and entertainment companies around the world—including sports channels and associations—and reinforced by the Motion Picture Association’s content protection operations, ACE protects the creativity and innovation that drives the global growth of core copyright and entertainment industries. The current governing board members for ACE are Amazon, Apple TV+, Netflix, Paramount Global, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, The Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. Discovery. Charles Rivkin is Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association and Chairman of ACE. For more information, visit www.alliance4creativity.com.
Media Contact
Pamela Corante
pamela_corante@motionpictures.org
