Expansion in Japan will enable Midnight to operate in a country that is ‘uniquely vulnerable to AI-generated copyright infringement’ due to ‘sophisticated digital piracy syndicates’ operating at ‘unprecedented scale’.

Dublin-based AI-powered copyright protection platform Midnight Labs is to benefit from investment by Sony Innovation Fund.

The investment for an undisclosed amount would be used to expand Midnight Labs’ agentic ‘Enforcement Engine’ to protect high-value entertainment intellectual property (IP) from mass piracy, deepfakes and AI-generated infringement in the US and Japanese markets, the company said.

Midnight’s technology uses “automated enforcement workflows” to fast-track the scanning, detection, analysis, verification and removal of IP-infringing content in minutes, rather than weeks, according to the company, which forecasts that “video piracy alone will drive an estimated $125bn in annual revenue leakage by 2028”.

“Generative AI has industrialised piracy, exposing IP holders to both financial loss and real-time reputational damage,” said Dan Purcell, CEO and co-founder of Midnight Labs. “Traditional digital rights management built on manual processes simply cannot keep pace with AI-generated infringement, leaving legal and content protection teams overwhelmed.

“We make enforcement autonomous by scanning, detecting, proving and removing stolen content faster than it can spread, returning control to IP holders over their content, reputation and revenue. The backing of Sony Innovation Fund accelerates that mission.”

Midnight, founded in 2025, said it has removed more than 2.8bn pieces of infringing content across gaming, anime, manga, film, sports, music and live streaming, and works with “the world’s largest streaming platforms, entertainment studios, podcast networks, talent agencies and Fortune 100 executives”.

According to the company, its platform integrates legal-grade evidence collection directly into an automated pipeline, with “every takedown” supported by a “forensic evidence bundle, including time-stamped screenshots, cryptographic hashes, HTML source archives and full network records”, enabling the next steps towards litigation and court proceedings following content removal.

The company claims that its internal AI platform continuously scans more than 75m sources – including on the dark web and non-compliant platforms –  and identifies threats in real time to automate takedowns, filings and compliance workflows.

Expansion in Japan through Sony’s funding will enable Midnight to operate in a country that it said is “uniquely vulnerable to AI-generated copyright infringement” due to “sophisticated digital piracy syndicates” operating at “unprecedented scale” there.

“Midnight Labs is tackling an important and increasingly complex problem for the creative industries,” said Antonio Avitabile, managing director at Sony Ventures EMEA. The company is also backed by Airbridge Equity Partners, Earlybird VC and Upside VC.

Midnight also offers a “creator-focused” product named Ceartas, which the company said is aimed at “protecting the world’s biggest content creators and creator-economy brands from impersonation, piracy and deepfakes”, and was “founded to fight exploitation and protect victims of non-consensual content”.

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