The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, the world’s strongest group against piracy, has announced that it will grow even more. Charles Rivkin, the head of ACE/MPA, says that the two new members are Hong Kong’s streaming platform Viu and Thailand’s leading cable satellite TV provider, True Visions. That will help ACE reach more people worldwide. But the coalition has no intention of stopping there.
In the summer of 2017, a large group of major companies got together. They announced a new step in their fight against piracy.
The Alliance of Creativity and Entertainment set out to protect the rights of its members. The main focus is on preventing illegal streaming on the web, pirate IPTV, and apps that work with them.
Hollywood studios like Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, and MGM joined forces with Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu through the MPA. Sky and BBC, which make their own shows, were also in the mix, but ACE had bigger plans.
At its start in 2017, ACE had only 30 members. But it’s constantly growing over the years. The addition of two new members this week is proof of their growth. This means the anti-piracy coalition now has 39 members, all of which are committed to stopping illegal streaming piracy.
ACE Adds First Two Asia-Based Companies
Viu is a video streaming service that is based in Hong Kong and is available in seven Asian countries. These countries are Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Myanmar. Via has free and paid levels of services. They also make original content under the name “Viu Original.”
True Visions is Thailand’s biggest cable and satellite TV provider. In 2020, the MPA and True Visions worked together to shut down three illegal streaming sites. More recently, it worked with ACE to shut down one of Thailand’s biggest sites for illegal downloading, We-Play.
Both of them are now part of the ACE coalition, which now has 39 companies in it.
MPA/ACE Chief Welcomes New Members
Charles Rivkin, Chairman of ACE and the Motion Picture Association, says that the addition of Viu and True Visions is the start of ACE growing to include local media companies from key global markets.
“By growing ACE’s footprint throughout the APAC region, we are building new relationships with local law enforcement authorities and other key partners in our ongoing effort to shut down piracy operations around the world,” Rivkin says.
“These new members further strengthen ACE’s global reach and collective approach to disrupting a piracy ecosystem that harms the creative economy worldwide.”
Sompan Charumilinda, the Executive Vice Chairman of True Visions. He thinks that his company will be able to fight piracy more effectively if his company joins ACE. Most importantly, this will help them to increase their reputation after joining ACE.
“We want to support Thai people, as they compete in a globalized marketplace, by protecting their work with strong intellectual property rights stewardship,” he says.
“We are pleased to be the first member of ACE based in Thailand and look forward to helping drive important actions in this market that will improve the piracy landscape and pave the way for a brighter future.”
The CEO of Viu, Janice Lee wants to influence people. She says that one of her company’s goals is to get people who use illegal sites to switch to legal services like Viu. Viu can do this with the help of ACE’s disruption services.
“As one of the leading video-on-demand services offering premium Asian content, we recognize the need to address the piracy that is widespread in our markets,” Lee says.
“We are committed to ensuring that consumers move from illegal piracy sites to legal options like Viu by providing an unparalleled viewer experience and investing in the creative ecosystem.”
Conclusion
With the addition of these two new members, ACE is now officially present in Asia. In April 2022, ACE also did something new by adding sports broadcaster beIN SPORTS. The primary aim of this is to stop people from pirating live sports events. In the coming months, more companies with sports rights will likely join ACE.
