[IP finance] The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment: What About the Little People?

[Mike Mireles]

A new group of professional, large scale, content creators has formed to fight online piracy: Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE).  The new group, with around 30 members, includes Netflix, Amazon and many well-known entities such as BBC Worldwide, Paramount, HBO, Univision and Telemundo.  The press release notes that there are "480 online services worldwide available for consumers to watch films and television programs legally on demand." The press release further ties the problem of piracy to jobs and even the danger of identity theft.  The press release notes:

Films and television shows can often be found on pirate sites within days – and in many cases hours – of release. Last year, there were an estimated 5.4 billion downloads of pirated wide release films and primetime television and VOD shows using peer-to-peer protocols worldwide. There were also an estimated 21.4 billion total visits to streaming piracy sites worldwide across both desktops and mobile devices in 2016.

ACE states that it “will conduct research, work closely with law enforcement to curtail illegal pirate enterprises, file civil litigation, forge cooperative relationships with existing national content protection organizations, and pursue voluntary agreements with responsible parties across the internet ecosystem.”  It’ll be interesting to see ACE (particularly with Internet companies, Google and Netflix, pitted against Google/YouTube and other platforms.  Do non-professional/smaller scale content creators have a lobbying/litigation group? 

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Posted By Mike Mireles to IP finance on 6/16/2017 02:15:00 am