ACE Seizes Domains Of Large Sports Streaming Pirate Sites

There is no denying that the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has been rather successful over the past few years.

The anti-piracy group, which represents prominent rightsholders such as Apple, the BBC, Canal+, Disney, Sky, Netflix, and Warner Bros, systematically hunts down key piracy players.

ACE is well connected with law enforcement around the world and continues to expand its user base. Last week, two new rightsholders from Asia were added to the roster and last month sports broadcaster beIN joined the group.

Crackdown on Egyptian Sports Streaming Sites

The partnership with beIN is already proving fruitful. 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 beIN’s rights.

The sites in question had a combined 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 Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The police action resulted in three arrests and the seizures of several domain names, which are 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.

Research by TorrentFreak 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

Both ACE and beIN are pleased with the results of the operation. Commenting on the takedowns, ACE’s global content protection chief Jan van Voorn praises the broad cooperation.

“Working together, we have the network, the resources and the expertise needed to tackle the serious threat piracy poses to media companies all over the world and to protect the legal marketplace for content creators,” Van Voorn notes.

A beIN spokesperson shares this sentiment and considers last week’s action a major success that will help to protect rightsholders worldwide.

“Actions like those undertaken by Egyptian law enforcement agencies are a huge victory. In concert with ACE, we collectively have the means to support takedowns of this nature throughout the region, and will continue to do so to protect the leagues, fellow broadcasters and the entire sporting ecosystem.”

Largest Sports Streaming Sites are Still Online

There is no denying that the takedown efforts had a significant impact. However, that doesn’t mean that the sports streaming problem in Egypt has been solved. In fact, the largest “Yalla-Shoot” sites still remain online.

At the time of writing, Yalla-shoot.io, Yalla-shoot.com and Yalla-shoot-new.com are still accessible. Together, these sites have a combined 20 million ‘users’ which is four times as many as the domains that were seized.

There’s no doubt that ACE and beIN have these domains on their radar. The question is whether they can track down the operators or convince domain registries and registrars to take action.