A joint operation between French police and the Association against Audiovisual Piracy (ALPA) has resulted in the closure of piracy streaming website, artv.watch.
Artv.watch allowed users to view 176 free and paid French TV channels, including members of ALPA, including Paramount, Disney and Fox.

The website itself was visited by 150,000 unique users every month and also offered a mobile application, which had a total of 800,000 registered users.

The creator and owner of the website will suffer a 3 year prison sentence and a €300,000 fine.

In a message on the website, which has now closed down, the owner said that the site was “indeed illegal”.

He said he would strongly advise against anyone setting up a similar site.

The ALPA noted that its collaboration with French police was one of the first in France.