Extreme-Down Pirate Site Shut Down by ACE – What Happened?

After many years of serving as a safe haven for unlawful downloads, ACE-Down, one of the most notorious pirate destinations on the internet, unexpectedly shut down this week without providing any explanation.

The domain was initially registered in 2005 and changed ownership multiple times over the following 15 years.

Following the footsteps of other successful websites, ACE-Down frequently transitioned to new domains; although the reasons behind the transitions were not always clear, legal action by rights holders often followed shortly thereafter.

Some of these domains included ace-down.lol, ace-down.video, ace-down.tv, ace-down.pro, ace-down.live, and others.

The final proprietor of ACE-Down was a French individual, and before its sudden shutdown, the site had grown to attract millions of monthly visitors.

For years, various copyright holders attempted to bring down ACE-Down by sending complaints to hosting companies and payment processors in an effort to combat illicit activities. However, their endeavors largely went unheeded, until now.

The anti-piracy group ACE (Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment) asserted that their unwavering pursuit of justice led to the closure of this notorious pirate gateway.

When attempting to access the original domain (ACE-Down.com), users will now encounter the following screen.

This outcome is not surprising. ACE has previously succeeded in shutting down prominent sources such as Torrent9 and Cpasbien as well as two prominent streaming portals, along with numerous other smaller sources in recent years.

The Executive Vice President of ACE, Jan van Voorn, remarked on the closure:

“ACE-Down offered an extensive library of TV series and movies in French and original versions; we counted more than 40,000 movies and TV series episodes affecting ACE members. That library is now closed. The elimination of this website is a massive success for the protection of rights holders in French-speaking countries.”

Regrettably for those who frequented these websites in order to unlawfully download content, it appears there is a trend of shutting down more illegal resources every day by organizations like ACE and their worldwide affiliates.

Nevertheless, despite this reality, it seems that preventing all pirate sites from emerging entirely will prove to be quite a challenge, if not impossible.