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After being attacked in French courts by film companies, blocked by French ISPs, and then de-indexed by Google, illegal streaming/DDL site Extreme-Down burned down domain after domain in an effort to stay in the game. At the end of 15 years of resilience, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment closed the site following a mission to Africa.
When Extreme Download (Extreme-Down.com) first appeared on the Internet about 15 years ago, it linked to movies hosted on sites like Megaupload. The site was a bit basic at first, but people expected a lot less back then.
Four years later, Megaupload fell off in spectacular fashion, but Extreme-Down and sites like it chose to weather the storm. With the increase in traffic and the rise in popularity, the eventual appearance of dark clouds was almost inevitable, it was just a matter of when.
Millions of visits, against all odds
Focused on French-language content, Extreme-Down was predictably popular in France. More than three-quarters of Extreme-Down's visitors came from the region as of December 2022, with Belgium, Canada and Switzerland accounting for most of the remainder.
Extreme-Down received around 15 million views per month last year, an impressive feat considering the circumstances. Like other successful sites, Extreme-Down was regularly switching to new domains. While the reasons weren't always clear, legal action by rights holders was rarely left behind.
ISP blocking orders in Belgium (pdf) presented some obstacles, but when rights holders banded together to target Extreme-Down in France, many of the site's domains were blocked by ISPs in the region that mattered most. (pdf).
More domains, more confusion, more imitators
To mitigate the block, Extreme-Down began rolling out new domains, which also helped the platform retain search engine visibility. The blocking of ISPs in France was backed by court-ordered "dereference" instructions, meaning Google was required to completely de-index Extreme-Down domains.
Deindexing was supposed to have a devastating effect on the site but, as some had predicted, it ended up making things worse. Sensing a gap in the market for sites with the same design and a similar name, copycat sites sprang up one after another in a race to dominate the search results. Some even exploited the confusion to separate people from their money.
Meanwhile, Extreme-Down remained determined to stay active, doing so well into December 2022. Then suddenly, without warning or suggestion of a new lockdown, the platform disappeared. From the start, the chances of another comeback seemed less likely than before.
Earlier this Monday, it became clear that Extreme-Down is unlikely to return. One by one, the domains previously controlled by the site (extreme-down.lol, extreme-down.video, extreme-down.tv, extreme-down.pro, and extreme-down.live) were transferred to a new owner.
Alliance For Creativity closes Extreme-Down
As additional domains were transferred to the Motion Picture Association, including extreme-down.in, extreme-down.io, and extreme-down.info, all that remained was for the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment to officially announce Extreme-Down's demise. .
โThe Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world's leading anti-piracy coalition, announced today that it has shut down France's second most popular illegal streaming site, Extreme-down,โ the ACE announcement read.
"Thanks to ACE's rapidly expanding global network, we are in a better position than ever to take decisive action against illegal piracy operators in all markets around the world," said Jan van Voorn, executive vice president and head of content protection. Motion Picture Association Global. and Head of ACE.
โExtreme-down offered a large library of French TV series and movies and original versions; We count over 40,000 episodes of movies and TV series that affect ACE members. That library is now closed."
Carrier tracked from ACE to Tunisia
ACE's investigation was supported by French premium TV channel providers, ACE members CANAL+ and France Televisions, and local authorities.
The Extreme-Down operator was traced to Houmt Souk, Tunisia. ACE reached out and got an agreement to shut down the site. Turning over domains to the MPA was part of the package.
โThe CANAL+ Group has been fighting content piracy for years and, as a member of ACE, we are particularly pleased with the removal of this notorious illegal website,โ said Celine Boyer, CANAL+ Group Global Director of Content Protection.
"The removal of this website is a great success for the protection of rights holders in French-speaking countries."
