A partnership between Irdeto and Alibaba Group has led to the removal within just one month of over 5000 online advertisements for pirate devices from 71 manufacturers and suppliers on Alibaba.com.

The pirate devices receive Pay TV content via internet servers that are typically hosted in jurisdictions where it is difficult to enforce intellectual property rights.

Irdeto said addressing the problem at source and preventing the supply of these devices is an effective deterrent to pirates and ensures the rights holders get paid for the content they own.

Alibaba Group has been working closely with Irdeto since 2013 when a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed to formally support and reconfirm commitment to anti-piracy initiatives on the Alibaba Group eCommerce platforms.

As part of the memorandum, Irdeto conducted investigations into Alibaba.com advertisers that market and sell these pirate devices and notified Alibaba.com to have their advertisements removed.

Alibaba.com played a pre-emptive role in assisting with the removal of 5389 ads marketing pirate devices from 71 manufacturers and suppliers that offered content from Irdeto’s pay TV operator customers.

“Pay TV operators and content owners rely on a wide range of technologies, automated mechanisms and global collaboration networks to disrupt broadcast and online piracy,” said Rory O’Connor, VP for services at Irdeto.

“Through our partnership with Alibaba, we are able to stop illegal devices at the point they are being sold and protect the revenues of our pay media customers,” said O’Connor.

• Original reporting by Enterprise Innovation.