In its second announcement in so many days, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) confirmed an agreement with the owner of the piracy site Alltube.pl, and the subsequent transfer of the site and associated domains to ACE.
This agreement follows a legal action against Alltube last February whereby the Warsaw Circuit Court recognized the illegal nature of the site.
Adhering to principles confirmed by the European Union Court of Justice in various copyright cases, the court said: “The actions of Alltube, which consisted of providing Internet users with links to the works, should be qualified as infringement of law. That infringement consists of communicating the links to the public, which constitutes an unauthorised exploitation of the works.”
The Alltube site shut down earlier this year; ACE now has obtained control of its domain and other domains related to the pirate service, all of which redirect visitors to the Watch Legally section of the ACE website.
ACE’s action against Alltube.pl was also welcomed by The Polish Film Distributors Association, representing the interests of all film distributors in Poland.
Canal+ Poland welcomed the action
“CANAL+ Group works tirelessly to protect our content around the world and understands the importance of Poland in that global strategy,” said Jakub Kupniewski, Director for Content Protection and Cyber Security at CANAL+ Poland. “The shutdown of Alltube is a critical step in preserving the creative ecosystem, and we thank ACE for their leadership in this action.”
Why it matters
“I know that piracy is an ongoing threat to all the people who work in the film sector,” said Andrzej Łudziński, President of the Film Distributors Association in Poland. “I welcome this action, which also benefits the Polish film industry as sites such as Alltube.pl also pirate our content. It is important that there is a concerted effort to protect the Intellectual Property Rights and to fight illegal sharing of copyright-protected content on Internet platforms.”
Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association and head of ACE, added: “ACE is committed to protecting the legitimate streaming market and reducing piracy because the theft of online content is the single greatest threat to the global creative community. The operators of Alltube and similar services threaten the rights and livelihoods of the millions of people who work in the audiovisual sector and mislead consumers about the legitimacy of their services.”
