beIN Media Group & ACE shutdownnine additional pirate sites in Egypt

Tribune News NetworkCAIRObeIN Media Group (beIN), the global sports and entertainment broadcaster, and the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s leading coalition dedicated to combatting digital piracy, have confirmed the successful closure of nine additional illegal piracy operations by Egyptian law enforcement.Sixteen Egyptian police officers were involved in the raids and were supported by the Egyptian Ministry of Internal Affairs. These raids resulted in the arrest of the two operators and seizure of domains, assets and IT equipment. This action builds on beIN and ACE’s collective efforts in the region to tackle illegal theft of content and intellectual property. In June, both groups praised local law enforcement for actions taken to close an additional 18 piracy operations, bringing the total number of illegal sites shut down to 27. “ACE and beIN are grateful to the Egyptian Minister of Interior, the Assistant Minister for the Specialized Police, and the Director of the General Administration of Works and Intellectual Property Rights for their partnership and engagement in seeing this action through and for acknowledging and prioritising the theft of intellectual property as a serious crime. We look forward to continuing to work together throughout the prosecution of this case,” said Jan van Voorn, executive vice president and chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association and head of ACE.A beIN spokesperson added: “It is hugely encouraging to see continued anti-piracy operations undertaken by our Egyptian colleagues. This is another victory for sports fans, players and clubs of all levels in across the sporting eco-system. beIN is determined to support the fight against broadcast piracy throughout the region to protect leagues and fellow broadcasters. We are pleased to see our partnership with ACE develop, with a great of benefit to be derived by all stakeholders in the sporting world from this shutdown.”The nine sites shut down in this recent action are: yalla-shoot.today: Active since December 2018, this was one of the most popular live football streaming websites in the Arabic-speaking world, with a total of 125 million visits in the last two years and a little over 5 million monthly visits over this period.yalla-shoot-kora.com: Active since July 2018, this was a live football streaming website popular in the region. It averaged a little over half a million visits per month and a total of 14.5 million visits in the last two years.yalla-shoot-arabia.com: Active since March 2020, this was another live football streaming website popular in the Arabic-speaking world. The site enjoyed a total of 7.3 million visits, or an average of 290.000 monthly visits over the past two years.yalla-shoot-arabia.net: Active since March 2021, this was one of the most popular live football streaming websites in the region, with a total of 7.511 million visits in the last two years and almost 600,000 monthly visits over this period.hdkoora.com: Active since early 2018, hdkoora.com, a live football streaming website popular in the region, averaged almost 600.000 monthly visits and a total of 11.6 million visitors in the last three years. kooora4k.com: Active since March 2021, this was a live football streaming website, with a total of 5,000 visits in the last two years.korawatch.com, kooralive-online.com, and alqnassport.com: Active since March 2021, both korawatch.com and kooralive-online.com were live football streaming websites.All sites reached users in several of the Middle East and North African countries, including Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Tunisia, as well as the US. They attracted almost 166 million visitors over the past two years, across live sports and entertainment programming, providing a common pathway for consumers to illegally view content since 2019.beIN joined ACE in April 2022 and through this partnership has already delivered strong results for the global anti-piracy coalition. In June, ACE and beIN jointly supported the takedown 18 other sites, all major illegal live sport operators based in Cairo.As a premium sports and entertainment content provider to more than 40 territories around the world, beIN joined ACE as part of the company’s comprehensive effort to end global content theft. The daily theft of sport and entertainment programs remains a key threat to the licensed services market.