ACE takes on Zoro.to, the long-awaited successor to Aniwatch.to - Attention, explosive revelation!

Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment shuts down hacking site Zoro.to

Earlier this year, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) shut down one of the biggest piracy sites, Zoro.to. The anti-piracy group reached an agreement with its Vietnamese operator, which also ran the popular 2Embed service. Shortly before its closure, Zoro.to was "acquired" by Aniwatch.to, which now finds itself at the center of a new ACE investigation.

Victories for the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment

There's no denying that the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has won many victories in recent years.

The anti-piracy group, which represents the major Hollywood studios and other well-known rights holders such as Apple, the BBC and Netflix, is systematically tracking down the main piracy players.

A few weeks ago, ACE claimed one of this year's biggest successes by closing 2Embed after negotiations with its operator based in Hanoi, Vietnam.

2Embed was one of the key services that created a sensation in the world of pirate streaming. The site offered access to a catalog of pirate streaming links for 300,000 movies and TV series, which could easily be integrated into any website simply by using an IMDb ID as a reference.

Zoro's last-minute acquisition

Just after 2Embed ceased operations, Zoro.to announced some surprising news. With over 200 million visits, the anime streaming portal was one of the biggest piracy sites until last June, when it was suddenly acquired by a new team, who redirected it to Aniwatch.to.

This sudden takeover was probably no coincidence. 2Embed and Zoro.to were apparently operated by the same person who, after ACE's visit to Vietnam, struck a deal with the anti-piracy alliance. And indeed, now both 2Embed and Zoro.to redirect to ACE's "Look Legal" page.

This major success was marred by Zoro's earlier redirection to Aniwatch.to, which proved rather effective. This new streaming portal appeared out of nowhere and is now one of the biggest online piracy portals with 277 million monthly visits in August.

ACE takes on Aniwatch

With this new site appearing right under the noses of the MPA and ACE, it's no surprise that Aniwatch is now a priority target. And indeed, thanks to two recent subpoenas, rights holders are trying to find out who's in charge.

Last week, the MPA filed several DMCA subpoenas in a California federal court. The subpoenas are addressed to Cloudflare and domain registry Tonic, and list several targets, including Aniwatch.to.

The subpoenas have been requested on behalf of ACE members in order to obtain the personal contact details of those operating Aniwatch.to, Gogoanimehd.to, Myflixerz.to and several other domains.

Specifically, ACE is looking for the "names, physical addresses, IP addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account histories" of the users operating the allegedly infringing sites.

Other high-traffic sites

Aniwatch is undoubtedly the biggest target, but other sites also have massive traffic. Gogoanimehd.to, for example, recorded over 90 million visits last month, while Myflixerz.to came close to 60 million.

In addition to the .to domain registry, ACE is also seeking the same information from Cloudflare through a DMCA subpoena. These recent subpoena requests are part of a larger effort targeting dozens of domain names, listed at the bottom of this article.

All in all, it's clear that despite major enforcement efforts this year, CEA still has a lot of ground to cover. Although it sometimes seems like a perpetual game of hammer and tongs, rights holders hope that their perseverance will eventually pay off.