A New Wave of Pirate Domain Seizures by ACE Hits the Scene

• ACE has seized more domains associated with pirate IPTV platforms, infringing file-sharing, and Kodi add-ons.
• ACE has targeted both unknown and notorious platforms, and both novel and familiar entities.
• The owners and operators of these platforms have little margin of movement once ACE notices them.

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has seized and closed down a new batch of pirate domains, continuing its war against copyright infringement. This time, the crosshair of ACE locked targets relating to IPTV services, Kodi add-ons, and Android APKs, all having the common denominator of offering access to copyright-protected content without a license. According to Torrent Freak, the new wave of seizures involves domains used by the Firestick Plusman (FSPM), Streams For Us, and ACE TV.

Firestick Plusman (FSPM) is linked with the provision of illegal IPTV services, the “Fantastic TV” add-on for Kodi, and Android applications that point to FTP storage and file-sharing platforms. ‘fspmkodi.com’ now displays the typical ACE seizure message and redirects to the organization’s platform. The story is similar for ACE TV, and the domains ‘acetv.online,’ ‘acehostingservice.com,’ and ‘acetvpremium.com,’ which were all offering illegal IPTV services until now.

Moreover, the action against “Streams for Us” that experienced its first troubles last month was now furthered. The IPTV provider now also lost the ‘neumediatv.net’ and the ‘loveyour.tv’ domains that were operating under the “Steams For Us” umbrella but using a different name to avoid prosecutors. Another two domains, namely ‘Elitestreamtv.com’ and ‘Cosmostv.ca,’ were also seized. However, these two weren’t very successful IPTV platforms anyway, so they won’t be missed by many users.

Finally, ACE seized even more domains that were used by “The Players Klub” even though the particular service had gone offline anyway. The new set of domains that have been taken down are ‘MintPanel.net’, ‘MintPanel.co,’ ‘MintPanel.digital,’ ‘thepk.co,’ ‘tkotv.stream,’ and ‘tpkshield.net.’

Related: ACE Shuts Down Pirate IPTV Platforms “T.KO TV” and “DripTV”

ACE and the MPA (Motion Pictures Association) have likely forced the operators of some of the platforms above to hand them domain ownership and seize their operations. ACE’s size and financial power are so intimidating that they don’t even have to go to courts and submit official complaints anymore. They identify sets of target domains and set a complex mechanism in motion, which applies great pressure to the pirates who hide behind it. In many cases, extrajudicial agreements with settlement amounts are also agreed between the parties, but little on that part ever sees the light.