Apple TV+ Joins Anti-Piracy Group

Apple TV+ has joined hands with the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a group of entertainment companies and streaming services companies focusing on curb internet piracy.

According to the details, ACE was founded in 2017 by the Motion Pictures Association along with 30 companies in the industry, and the group now includes prominent members such as Sony Pictures and Netflix. At the time of its launch, it represented a novel partnership between legacy movie studios and streaming services.

Apple has announced to join the group’s governing board along with Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, and NBCUniversal, according to the 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 collaboration with the organization represents an increasing bond between the company and legacy studios, and will likely draw Apple further into industry-wide efforts to crack down on pirated content.