ACE uses DMCA subpoenas to unmask major pirate sites worldwide

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s leading coalition dedicated to protecting the dynamic legal ecosystem and reducing digital piracy, has announced its latest round of DMCA subpoenas.
This month’s round addresses 29 domains, including the hugely popular ssphim.net which received over 40M total visits from February 2021 through February of this year, and watchmovierulz.co which received over 25M visits in the same time period.
The two domains’ top countries for visitors were Vietnam and India, respectively.
Just last month, ACE also successfully unmasked 29 domains, with several of the domains in that group having over five million annual visits from both the US and abroad.
“ACE is committed to using every available option to reduce digital piracy,” said Karen Thorland, Senior Vice President & Chief of Global Content Protection, Legal. “We have had great success to date utilizing DMCA subpoenas and will continue to use the process as part of our enforcement operations.”
Since 2021, ACE has continued to utilize the DMCA subpoena process to successfully unmask various piracy services that use intermediaries. Under the DMCA, ACE requests that the court issue a subpoena for information sufficient to identify the infringing customer, thereby readily identifying pirate operations.
The theft of digital content harms both local and foreign films and businesses, threatens jobs, undermines investment, reduces tax contributions to governments, and stifles creativity.