Trade body the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has welcomed the criminal sentencing of Steven R Hale to 21 months in federal prison by the US District Court for the Western District of Tennessee for criminal copyright infringement. Hale stole and sold pre-release DVDs and Blu-rays of major films. The sentence follows Hale’s guilty plea in […]
Motion Picture Association Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin has used the occasion of the 2025 MPA Awards to highlight the importance of protecting copyright and fighting the threat of content piracy. In his introductory remarks, he said the event recognised the law enforcement teams who work to secure the content we love to watch. “To […]
In collaboration with Egyptian authorities, antipiracy coalition the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has confirmed the shutdown of the Streameast piracy network. Through its 80 associated domains, the network logged more than 1.6 billion visits in the past year, making it the largest illicit live sports streaming operation in the world. “Today, ACE scored […]
In a new decisive step in the fight against organised crime in the audiovisual industry, a massive operation in Argentina has dismantled a criminal network with up to 8 million paying users worldwide and a potential reach of over 20 million clients. The operation, led by the Argentine judiciary, involved technical collaboration from La Liga, […]
Building on its global efforts to combat illegal streaming operations, antipiracy coalition the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has reached a settlement with the operators of Rare Breed IPTV. As part of the agreement, the operators will permanently shut down their illegal service and pay a significant financial settlement. Rare Breed IPTV was an […]
A federal court in Seattle has issued a default judgment in favour of Amazon and studio plaintiffs Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros and HBO in a joint action targeting an international counterfeiting operation that sold fake DVDs on Amazon. The ruling grants all requested relief—including more than $7.5 million (€6.5m) in statutory damages and broad injunctive […]
Trade body the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has welcomed the publication by the Office of the US Trade Representative of its 2024 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy (the Notorious Markets List). MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said: “Every year, the Notorious Markets List identifies the world’s most brazen criminal operations that […]
A new study commissioned by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) showed that Filipino consumers who access piracy sites and services are at severe risk of cyber threats such as identity theft and ransomware. The study found Filipinos are up to 33 times more likely to encounter a cyber threat on the most popular piracy sites […]
The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) has issued two requests to disable access to six domains and subdomains found pirating movies, a move that coincided with the celebration of National Anti-Piracy Month during October. One of the requests covered the blocking of SFlix sites, namely sflix.to, sflix.se and sflix.is. The other dealt with […]
Anti-piracy coalition the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) says it applauds the criminal court in Stuttgart, Germany for sentencing the four operators of a pirate IPTV service for copyright infringement and commercial gang fraud. ACE also commends the Esslingen police for its investigation. ACE had filed a claim to support the ongoing criminal prosecution […]