Apple's Apple TV+ division has joined the Motion Picture Association of America's Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an anti-piracy group committed to "supporting the legal marketplace for video content and addressing the challenge of online piracy."
ACE first launched in June 2017 with Netflix and Amazon as founding members, and dozens of movie and content studios have joined like Comcast, Disney, NBC, BBC, AMC, MGM, ViacomCBS, Paramount, Fox, and others.
Apple TV+ will join the ACE governing board, which includes Amazon, Disney, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., in addition to Apple.
ACE's goal is to disrupt the piracy ecosystem that harms creators, with streaming piracy representing 80 percent of all piracy today, costing companies as much as $71 billion annually. As noted by Axios, streaming piracy is a greater concern to Apple now that it has original streaming content to protect.
Streaming piracy is a growing problem representing 80% of all piracy today. Unlawful piracy operations put incredible innovation, creativity and investment at risk, to the detriment of creators, innovators and consumers alike. According to the Global Innovation Policy Center, piracy costs as much as $71 billion annually in lost domestic revenues. Additionally, consumers are harmed when accessing illegal content - one-third of pirate sites target consumers with malware that can lead to a range of problems, including identify theft and financial loss, according to a report by Digital Citizens Alliance.
An estimated 23 million individuals across nine million U.S. households use a pirate subscription IPTV service. Since it was founded, ACE has "achieved many successful global enforcement actions" against illegal streaming services and sources of unauthorized content.
