In a significant victory against piracy, Streameast, the world's largest illegal sports streaming platform, has been shut down. The operation was carried out by Egyptian authorities in collaboration with the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a leading anti-piracy organization.
The ACE is an alliance of 50 media and entertainment companies including industry giants like Amazon, Netflix, and Disney. Together with Egyptian police, they successfully executed an operation to dismantle the website.
Charles Rivkin, chairman of ACE, said:
“Today, ACE scored a resounding victory in its fight to detect, deter, and dismantle criminal perpetrators of digital piracy: by taking down the largest illegal live sports platform anywhere,”
“With this landmark action, we have put more points on the board for sports leagues, entertainment companies, and fans worldwide—and our global alliance will stay on the field as long as it takes to identify and target the biggest piracy rings across the globe.”
Streameast operated through a network of 80 associated domains and logged more than 1.6 billion visits over the past year alone. It provided users with live broadcast feeds to matches from leading global sports leagues such as the National Football League (NFL), Premier League, and National Basketball Association (NBA).
Origin of site traffic
ACE revealed that site traffic to these various domains primarily originated from countries like the US, Canada, UK, Philippines and Germany. Following this crackdown on piracy all these sites will now redirect users to a 'Watch Legally' page on ACE’s website.
According to The Athletic report two men were arrested under suspicion of copyright infringement in El-Sheikh Zaid city located 20 miles west of Cairo during this raid. Authorities confiscated laptops and smartphones suspected to have been used for operating these websites.
Investigators also reportedly discovered links between Streameast operators and a shell company based in UAE which allegedly laundered advertising revenue worth UK£4.9 million since 2010 along with an additional UK£150k found in cryptocurrency form.
Welcoming news for sports broadcasters
Sports broadcasters such as DAZN and BeIN have welcomed news about Streameast’s closure as it signifies progress towards fair broadcasting practices within sports.
Ed McCarthy, chief operating officer of DAZN Group, said:
“Dismantling Streameast is a major victory for everyone who invests in and relies on the live sports ecosystem. This criminal operation was siphoning value from sports at every level and putting fans across the world at risk. We commend the Egyptian authorities and ACE for their action in bringing down the world’s largest illegal sports streaming operation.”
This crackdown on Streameast is a significant step towards combating piracy and copyright infringement in the sports broadcasting industry. It serves as a reminder of the importance of legal consumption of content, ensuring that creators and rights holders are appropriately compensated for their work.
