BOGOTA – The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s leading coalition dedicated to protecting the dynamic legal ecosystem for creative content, has shut down a prolific Spanish-language piracy ring, in which the main websites were named after well-known and highly visited services.
In one of its largest actions ever in Latin America, ACE targeted a Colombian man in Bogota who had sought to elude scrutiny from rightsholders by operating numerous websites among which traffic was split. Despite his efforts, ACE identified the most relevant websites and determined that he operated them as well as an array of other, less visited pirate services. Following the ACE action, the operator agreed to transfer a total of 48 domains.
“This successful action confirms once again that, regardless of the tactics deployed by piracy operators, ACE will find them and shut them down,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association and Head of ACE. “I’m grateful to our team and partners for their work on this comprehensive action, which will have far-reaching and positive impact on the creative economy.”
All 48 domains combined received more than 271 million visits over the past two years, with traffic increasing each month. Over the last three months, the ring received on average 16.5 million visits per month.
The operator named several of the most visited domains after well-known piracy brands. The top five domains within the operator’s control – poseidonhd.nz, pelis24,se, cuevana.nz, pelisplus2.org, and pelismart.net – each tracked between 1.4 million and 2.2 million visits in September alone. Most traffic originated from Spain (41%), Mexico (14.5%), Argentina (12%), Colombia (6.5%), and Chile (4.5%).
About The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment
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 40 media and entertainment companies around the world 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, Paramount, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, and Warner Bros. Charles Rivkin is Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association and Chairman of ACE. For more information, please visit www.alliance4creativity.com.
Media Contact
John Mercurio
john_mercurio@motionpictures.org
