IBCAP opens anti-piracy lab
June 30, 2026
By Colin Mann
Anti-piracy body the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) has announced the opening of a significantly expanded anti-piracy lab in Denver. The new facility increases IBCAP’s operational capacity and, for the first time, gives broadcasters and content owners outside IBCAP’s traditional coalition model access to the organisation’s specialised technology, expertise and lab services.
In addition to more physical space, the new facility expands IBCAP monitoring capabilities and supports a broader portfolio of anti-piracy services. Powered by proprietary automated technology developed by IBCAP and first announced in April 2025, the lab enables IBCAP to monitor more IPTV and set-top-box-based services and at a faster rate, resulting in the discovery and removal of a greater volume of pirated streams.
Through relationships developed with intermediaries over the past 12 years, including widely used hosting providers and CDNs that cooperate with IBCAP’s takedown requests, the coalition typically achieves a 75 per cent effective takedown rate. This cooperation, combined with enhanced automation, has helped IBCAP more than double its number of takedowns over the past year.
“This new lab represents a transformative step for IBCAP and for the broadcasters and content owners we serve,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “We have invested in developing proprietary automation and technology that allows us to monitor piracy at a far greater scale and speed. At the same time, we are expanding our model so organisations that need targeted, specialised lab support can work directly with IBCAP without becoming coalition members. As a non-profit organisation, IBCAP is uniquely positioned to offer the expertise and technology our members and new customers require at a cost-effective price. These enhanced capabilities position IBCAP to address the rapid evolution of piracy technology, including the proliferation of IPTV services and playlist-based piracy.”
The new Denver lab is equipped to deliver a full suite of anti-piracy services:
1. STB / IPTV Service Monitoring
• Automated, 24/7 monitoring of hundreds of IPTV and set-top-box piracy services for live and video-on-demand (VoD) content
• New IPTV monitoring capabilities that identify assets belonging to a specific member or customer across pirate services
2. Web Live and VoD Monitoring
• Scheduled monitoring of live channel streams and VoD piracy
• Visual confirmation of infringement by analysts to support defensible enforcement actions
3. Automated Evidence Capture and Extraction
• On-demand screenshots, data exports and forensic network captures for any monitored service
• Extraction of critical technical evidence, including hosting provider and CDN identification and IP addresses, and key infrastructure such as authentication, authorisation, EPG and content servers
4. In-Depth Understanding of Pirate Ecosystems
• Comprehensive analysis of pirate operations and their underlying infrastructure
• Mapping of relationships among services to support coordinated, multi-front takedown strategies
• Analysis of payment and monetisation models used by pirate services
• Detection of emerging piracy-as-a-service operations before they scale
5. Validation and Delivery
• Review of findings through IBCAP’s analyst validation hub for quality assurance
• Flexible delivery options, allowing members and customers to receive raw monitoring data or fully validated, actionable intelligence packages
• A direct path from identification to takedown through IBCAP’s established enforcement workflow
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