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The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) and TrueVisions, Thailand’s leading pay-TV provider, collaborated to shut down domains associated with two pirate sites, one of which was a Piracy-as-a-Service (PaaS) platform costing $225 for ownership.
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In late 2023, popular streaming platforms like uhuseries.com, owlserieshd.com, and ahaseries.com, targeting the Thai market, had their domains redirected to the Motion Picture Association (MPA) as part of a settlement agreement.
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Additional domains, including Iamtheme.com, nunghub.com, and aplayer.xyz, were also rendered inoperable.
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Iamtheme.com, termed a back-end domain, hosted around 78,000 U.S. and international TV shows and movies.
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Uhuseries.com, active since 2019, attracted 1.3 million monthly visitors, mainly from Thailand, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The shutdown resulted from a successful collaboration between ACE and TrueVisions.
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TrueVisions Executive Vice Chairman thanked Thai law enforcement for their support in protecting intellectual property rights.
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The press release highlighted the risk of malware on piracy sites, emphasizing the closures as a "win-win for all" by protecting consumers, the Thai content industry, and local tax contributions.
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ACE reported that 27 pirate sites relying on Iamtheme.com for content and infrastructure are now offline.
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An alarming trend involved selling website templates for $225, allowing inexperienced individuals to become instant pirate site owners. The promotion targeted people with little to no technical skills.
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TrueVisions content was available through an API, purchasable on a subscription basis. The $225 price tag was less attractive considering potential risks and lack of technical support for script modifications.
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A website selling these scripts offered installation assistance but cut off customer support if any changes were made.
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This raised concerns about the security of these pirate sites run by inexperienced operators.
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The script's advertising features allowed site owners to manage advertising details without programming knowledge, encouraging a more-is-always-better approach to intrusive advertising.