@Skippern sent this message to the list a while ago:
IHS Maritime have just started to advertise what according to their statement on twitter might be a new free AIS service. Coverage needs to be investigated. It might be interesting to use this as replacement for the MarineTraffic, that as I understand (also after contacting them with a private request for access) have commercialised their API.
Another service that you may consider is aishub.net. I upload my AIS data to them as well as marinetraffic.com. This means that we can download their global data.
@Skippern sent this message to the list a while ago: