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The world’s leading anti-piracy coalition, ACE, scored another major success. Along with one of its newest members, sports broadcaster beIN, the group shut down several major sports streaming domains. The rights holders received support from dozens of police officers in Egypt, where the sites were based.
There’s no denying that the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has done quite well in recent years.
The anti-piracy group, which represents leading rights holders such as Apple, the BBC, Canal+, Disney, Sky, Netflix and Warner Bros, systematically tracks down major piracy players.
ACE is well connected with law enforcement around the world and continues to expand its user base. Last week two new rights holders from Asia were added to the list and last month sports broadcaster beIN joined the group.
Crackdown on Egyptian sports streaming sites
The partnership with beIN is already bearing fruit. A few days ago, four major sports streaming sites, including Yalla-Shoot-7sry.com, yalla-shoot.us and Yallashoot-news.com, were taken offline after infringing on beIN’s rights.
The sites in question had a total of 4.8 million “users” in May and were particularly popular in Egypt. ACE and beIN received help from 60 Egyptian police officers as well as the country’s interior ministry.
The police intervention resulted in three arrests and the seizure of several domain names, now controlled by ACE. Instead of live sports, visitors to these sites will now see an ACE banner, informing them that their favorite streaming portal is no longer available due to copyright infringement.
TorrentFreak’s research revealed that several other sports streaming domains have also been taken over by ACE. These include Goal-cairo.net, Yalla-shoot.club and Yalla-live.us.
ACE and beIN celebrate
ACE and beIN are satisfied with the results of the operation. Commenting on the takedowns, ACE’s global head of content protection, Jan van Voorn, praised the broad cooperation.
“Working together, we have the network, resources and expertise to combat the serious threat that piracy poses to media companies around the world and to protect the legal market for content creators,” notes Van Voorn. .
A beIN spokesperson shares the sentiment and sees last week’s action as a major success that will help protect rightsholders around the world.
“Actions like those taken by Egyptian law enforcement are a huge victory. Together with ACE, we collectively have the means to support takedowns of this nature across the region, and we will continue to do so to protect the leagues, other broadcasters and the entire sports ecosystem.
The biggest sports streaming sites are still online
It is undeniable that the withdrawal efforts have had a significant impact. However, this does not mean that the problem of sports streaming in Egypt has been solved. In fact, the biggest “Yalla-Shoot” sites are still online.
At the time of writing, Yalla-shoot.io, Yalla-shoot.com and Yalla-shoot-new.com are still accessible. Together, these sites have 20 million “users” combined, four times more than the domains that were seized.
There is no doubt that ACE and beIN have these domains on their radar. The question is whether they can track down the operators or convince the domain registries and registrars to take action.
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