Apple joins motion picture industry anti-piracy group
Apple TV+ has joined the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a coalition of entertainment companies and streaming services seeking to stamp down internet piracy.
Credit: Apple
ACE was founded in 2017 by the Motion Pictures Association and 30 companies in the industry, and now includes members such as Netflix and Sony Pictures. At the time of its launch, it represented a novel partnership between legacy movie studios and streaming services.
Apple will join the group's governing board alongside Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, and NBCUniversal, Variety reports. According to ACE Chairman Charles Rivkin, the governing board "determines the strategy and where to spend the budget" for the group's anti-piracy efforts.
ACE goes after illegal services that offer unlimited live TV and film content for a price that undercuts legitimate platforms. Those platforms often claim to have legitimate rights to pirated content.
The organization investigates both piracy platforms and sellers of hardware that can aid in it. It also files lawsuits, and in the past has notched significant wins against piracy platform operators. ACE says that 9 million households, and about 23 million individual users, subscribe to a pirate TV service.
"It's an ongoing fight but I'm really proud of the way ACE has been advancing and protecting content creators," Rivkin told Variety. "When you shut down these illegal sites what happens is it drives traffic to legitimate sites."
Apple's cooperation with the organization represents a growing bond between the company and legacy studios, and will likely draw Apple further into industry-wide efforts to crack down on pirated content.
Credit: Apple
ACE was founded in 2017 by the Motion Pictures Association and 30 companies in the industry, and now includes members such as Netflix and Sony Pictures. At the time of its launch, it represented a novel partnership between legacy movie studios and streaming services.
Apple will join the group's governing board alongside Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, and NBCUniversal, Variety reports. According to ACE Chairman Charles Rivkin, the governing board "determines the strategy and where to spend the budget" for the group's anti-piracy efforts.
ACE goes after illegal services that offer unlimited live TV and film content for a price that undercuts legitimate platforms. Those platforms often claim to have legitimate rights to pirated content.
The organization investigates both piracy platforms and sellers of hardware that can aid in it. It also files lawsuits, and in the past has notched significant wins against piracy platform operators. ACE says that 9 million households, and about 23 million individual users, subscribe to a pirate TV service.
"It's an ongoing fight but I'm really proud of the way ACE has been advancing and protecting content creators," Rivkin told Variety. "When you shut down these illegal sites what happens is it drives traffic to legitimate sites."
Apple's cooperation with the organization represents a growing bond between the company and legacy studios, and will likely draw Apple further into industry-wide efforts to crack down on pirated content.
Comments
Piracy makes it hell for honest people sadly.
The article states ACE has notched significant wins against some but no examples.
https://torrentfreak.com/tag/alliance-for-creativity-and-entertainment/
This is probably going to end up being a PITA at a later date.
Again true, case in point the 4K HDCP stuff on Amazon Prime Video only works on Windows. But if I download the video from a torrent site (which is legal, as I have already paid for it via Amazon Prime) I can watch it in 4K on any device I please. That results in the likes of the ACE assuming that's another lost sale, when in fact it's already been paid for. How long until Apple blocks torrenting apps on macOS?
Yup, at some point the video has to be decoded and after that point it's possible to capture it. HDCP decoder boxes for example just it between the HDCP content and non-HDCP display, and decode it so that people can do with the content as they please. The efforts are pointless, because there's *always* a security hole somewhere or other and as the software can be decompiled, a hole (or compromised key) *always* gets found. Some systems had ways of updating the keys from a list of compromised keys on discs, but that broke legitimately purchased (but compromised) players and so was none too popular.
The law is so passive about piracy that people are handing out business cards advertising Kodi and loading their devices with hundreds of stolen movies. IT's disgusting.
If the government/cops did their damn job, piracy wouldn't be so open. I know plenty of people who proudly watch content illegally and shame theaters and purchases.