A well-known anti-piracy campaign called Operation Creative is continued by the UK police. A few days ago, the detectives arrested an individual in his mid-20s on suspicion of operating a number of streaming links websites. The police also suspended a number of domains and put a familiar warning banner on their main pages.

The police clarified the stages behind the ongoing campaign aimed at killing the illegal content websites. They said that the website owner is contacted and offered the opportunity to engage with the police, thus receiving a chance to correct their behavior and to start to operate legitimately. The officers clearly state that if a portal fails to comply, many other tactical options may be used. Such options include contacting the domain registrar to suspend the website or disrupting advertising revenue.

So, the disruption plans are clearly on the police agenda, but they also rely on the traditional investigation and arrest process, and now that’s exactly what they do. A few days ago, the officers arrested a 26-year-old individual in York, England, on suspicion of operating some streaming-related domains. The police confirmed that those sites have been suspended and the suspect was taken to a local police station for questioning. The industry observers also found out that some sports streaming domains were also suspended last week.

At the moment, the websites redirect to a page with a statement claiming they are under investigation for online copyright infringement. All domains having the word “boxing” in their titles linked to the biggest boxing events in the world, which would have put them on a collision course with legitimate content providers, such as British Sky Broadcasting, BT Sport and cable provider Virgin Media – all of them profit from that market.

Another suspended website linked to streams of many sporting events, thus putting itself firmly in the cross-hairs of the powerful Premier League. Many other websites would certainly have claimed unpopular with the NHL, NBA and ESPN.

Although the suspended streaming services certainly embedded videos and provided links to pirated content hosted elsewhere, their operator claims he has nothing to do with making the content available. The investigation is ongoing to find out if this is true.