Morocco and Tunisia, Africa: The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s leading coalition dedicated to protecting the legal ecosystem and reducing digital piracy, today announced it has forced Tirexo and Zone-Telechargement to close down. These sites are two of the largest piracy services operated out of North Africa with combined traffic reaching over 31 million monthly visits, mainly from French-speaking countries. Both operators were identified and approached by ACE and shortly after, closed their services. ACE has yet to consider the matter resolved and continues negotiations with the operators until a satisfactory settlement is achieved.
Operating from Morocco, Tirexo was the second most visited infringing service in France and the number one illegal streaming service in France. In March 2022, Tirexo attracted 18.87 million visits according to SimilarWeb. The service offered access to 131,000 movie titles and 34,000 TV series episodes, affecting all ACE members
Zone-Telechargement, a service operating from Tunisia, was the third most visited infringing service in France and was a downloading, linking, and streaming website. In March 2022, it attracted 11.36 million visits according to SimilarWeb. The service offered access to 46,000 movie titles and 11,500 TV series episodes, affecting all ACE members.
“This successful enforcement action against pirates in North Africa demonstrates ACE’s ability to utilize whatever tools are required to protect the creative ecosystem and our dedication to reducing piracy throughout the region,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association.
More operators of pirate services are identified in North-African countries and ACE is preparing future actions.
The theft of digital content harms both local and foreign films and businesses, threatens jobs, undermines investment, reduces tax contributions to governments, and stifles creativity.
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About The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE)
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) is the world’s leading coalition dedicated to protecting the dynamic legal 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 sources of unauthorized content and their operators. Drawing upon the collective expertise and resources of all members and reinforced by the content protection operations of the Motion Picture Association, ACE protects the creativity and innovation that drive the global growth of core copyright and entertainment industries. The current governing board members for ACE are: Amazon, Apple TV+, NBCUniversal, Netflix Studios LLC, Sony Pictures Entertainment, ViacomCBS, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, and Warner Bros. Charles Rivkin is Chairman of ACE and the Motion Picture Association. For more information, please visit www.alliance4creativity.com.
Media Contacts:
ACE
Kristen Tarnol – VP, Communications
Kristen_tarnol@motionpictures.org
