ACE Subpoena Targets French Private Tracker, Chinese Pirate Forum, and Vietnamese APIs

A new DMCA subpoena, requested by ACE, directs Cloudflare to help identify the operators of a geographically diverse list of pirate sites. In addition to the standard streaming portals, the legal paperwork mentions the French torrent tracker La Cale, the long-running Chinese BT Home forum, as well as several dedicated Vietnamese piracy APIs.

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) established itself as the world’s leading anti-piracy coalition.

The Motion Picture Association-led organization united rightsholders from all over the world, forming a united front against online copyright infringement.

While much of the enforcement work takes place behind closed doors, DMCA subpoenas are a staple information-gathering tool of ACE. Through these subpoenas, the organization requests third-party intermediaries to hand over information they have on various alleged pirate sites.

Earlier this year, ACE obtained a DMCA subpoena, compelling Discord to identify the operators of community servers attached to pirate streaming portals HDFull. This was paired with a broader subpoena, asking Cloudflare to share details on HDFull’s domain operator, as well as those of other sites.

DMCA Subpoenas

A few days ago, ACE requested a new DMCA subpoena against Cloudflare, targeting 29 new domain names. The legal paperwork is filed by the Motion Picture Association and names Columbia, Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros., who are all ACE members too.

Specifically, the subpoena demands identifying information, such as physical addresses, IP addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, payment information, and account history, related to the Cloudflare accounts associated with these sites.

The list of domain names is a testament to the global nature of the anti-piracy coalition, targeting French, Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian, Spanish, and Hindi-language sites, among others.

A Young French Torrent Tracker

One of the targeted domain names is la-cale.space, a French private BitTorrent tracker that launched in late December 2025. The site stands out because it’s a relatively new invitation-only community whose reach is more limited than public torrent or streaming sites.

Private Port, No Mercy for Informants
 

The private tracker has grown quite significantly recently, particularly after the collapse of the French YggTorrent tracker. The subpoena will test how well the operators have shielded their identities.

Domains, Works & URLs
 

The subpoena request lists “Moana” and “Gladiator 2” as two titles that are shared on the site. The legal paperwork also lists the private URLs, suggesting that the anti-piracy group has access to the private community.

A Veteran Chinese Torrent Forum

ACE’s subpoena also targets another pirate community that is the opposite of the French tracker in many ways. The Chinese forum known as “BT Home / 1LOU Station”, currently operating from 1lou.me, is far from a newcomer.

The veteran community has been operating in various incarnations for around two decades, hopping through domains including BTBTT, BTBBT, 1lou.icu, 1lou.pro, and now 1lou.me. It was one of the first torrent-oriented communities and remains online today, with millions of monthly visitors.

BT Home

The long-running Chinese forum is also an unusual target, as it is predominantly popular in mainland China. As far as we know, ACE does not have any members there. That said, the Hollywood movie studios have commercial interests around the globe.

Vietnamese APIs & Other International Targets

The list of domain names also includes kkphim.com, ophim17.cc, and phim.nguonc.com, which are not typical pirate streaming sites. Kkphim.com openly markets itself as a developer API, supplying movie metadata, posters, and m3u8 stream links for use by third-party streaming sites.

Technically, these sites can also be used directly by end users, but they are marketed as a “Piracy as a Service” platform, allowing others to easily launch their own pirate sites.

The international nature of the subpoena targets doesn’t end in Vietnam. The legal paperwork also lists the Russian site Kino.pub, the Thai nanamovies.org, various domains of the Indian streaming portal Movierulz, the Polish wizja.cc, and several Brazilian streaming outlets, including rrrv.lol.

To top it off, ACE also brings back a familiar target in the form of series.ly. The Spanish-language streaming portal has been around for over a decade, and its admins were acquitted twice over the past few years, in part because linking to copyrighted content wasn’t a crime in Spain when the alleged offenses took place.

At the time of writing, the subpoena has yet to be signed by a court clerk, which is typically just a formality. After it’s signed, ACE will have to wait and see how accurate the information is that Cloudflare has on file.

Operators of pirate sites are known to use false data with their hosting and infrastructure providers, which often limits the value of these subpoenas. That said, ACE had success with this enforcement tool in the past, and even minor leads can be useful when paired with information from other sources.

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A copy of the MPA’s §512(h) subpoena application is available here (pdf), along with the associated declaration (pdf) and the notice to Cloudflare (pdf).

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Posted Tuesday 19 May 2026 at 5:03 pm AEST (my time).

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