Vietnam anti-piracy success for ACE
March 1, 2023
By Colin Mann
Anti -piracy coalition the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has confirmed that it has shut down the Hanoi-based piracy operation USTVGO. Visitors to the site were greeted with a message saying: “Sorry, we are closed”.
The infringing live-streaming site had been in operation since 2018 and was providing illicit access to more than 100 live channels, including sports channels, the majority of which belonged to ACE members. Prior to the shutdown of USTVGO and its associated domains, it was averaging more than 16 million visits per month, with 75 per cent of the traffic originating in the United States.
Courts and other relevant authorities in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore had previously found USTVGO domains were infringing and ordered ISPs to block them. Nonetheless, the sites had continued operating out of Vietnam until ACE’s direct enforcement action.
“Our latest action is further proof that ACE is successfully fighting piracy operators in Vietnam and across the Asia-Pacific region,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Global Content Protection Chief for the Motion Picture Association and Head of ACE. “Vietnamese piracy operators have been associated with some of the world’s most egregious piracy services, which cause significant damage to the local and international marketplaces and make Vietnam a piracy hotspot. We have identified several piracy operators in Vietnam besides USTVGO and are making use of all available tools to shut them down.”
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