beIN Media hails closure of nine more piracy operations

beIN Media Group and the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) have reported the closure of nine 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, beIN said.

The media outfit said that the action built 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.

The nine sites shut down in this recent action were: yalla-shoot.today,  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; yalla-shoot-kora.com, a live football streaming website popular in the region; yalla-shoot-arabia.com, another such site active since March 2020; yalla-shoot-arabia.net, active since March 2021; hdkoora.com, active since early 2018; kooora4k.com; korawatch.com; kooralive-online.com; and alqnassport.com.

All sites reached users in several of the Middle East and North African countries, including Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Tunisia, as well as the US. They attracted almost 166 million visitors over the past two years, across live sports and entertainment programming.

“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.

“ACE and beIN take an extremely active approach to tackling piracy, customising our actions to most effectively combat various piracy methods – in Egypt, across the entire region, and globally. This is just the beginning of the work we’re going to do together to bring these illegal operations to justice”.

A beIN spokesperson said: “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.”