The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment announced that it had taken down the sites Uptobox and Uptostream in its fight against piracy, in an action carried out in France but also in the United Arab Emirates.

This Tuesday, law enforcement seized materials from Scaleway in connection with the pirate file sharing site Uptobox. A move welcomed by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE).

The location manager is in Dubai

ACE announced the closure of the sites Uptobox as well as Uptostream, two sites hosting illegal videos “the world’s most notorious in terms of digital piracy” indicated the alliance. This follows a police raid that took place in Scaleway on Tuesday, but the action was much wider.

Indeed, France is not the only region where this is done. The United Arab Emirates was also targeted because the two French nationals who operate the service are based in Dubai, where they profit from premium subscriptions and advertising broadcasts on the site.

Hence the end of the adventure for these sites that lasted for several years. Uptobox also has a very strong audience as the site has recorded 1.5 billion visits over the past three years, mainly in France, India and Mexico. Therefore, success still seems to be in France despite the DNS blocking of both sites by the operator.

Although ACE is a United States-based association, it is a global coalition that has several French members including CANAL+ and France Télévisions. “Canal+ supports swift action when acts of piracy compromise intellectual property rights, impacting our activities,” said Céline Boyer, head of content protection at CANAL+.