The expansion to Japan will enable Midnight to operate in a country that is ‘particularly vulnerable to AI-driven copyright infringement’ due to ‘sophisticated digital terrorism companies’ operating at an ‘unprecedented scale’.
Dublin-based AI-powered patent protection platform Midnight Labs is to benefit from investment by the Sony Innovation Fund.
The investment of an undisclosed amount will be used to expand the ‘Midnight Labs’ ‘Enforcement Engine’ to protect valuable entertainment intellectual property (IP) from mass piracy, deepfakes and AI-generated infringements in the US and Japanese markets, the company said.
Midnight’s technology uses “automated workflows” to speed up the scanning, detection, analysis, verification and removal of IP-infringing content in minutes, rather than weeks, according to the company, which predicts that “video piracy alone will drive an estimated $125bn in annual revenue leakage by 2028”.
“Generative AI has industrial piracy, exposing IP owners to financial loss and real-time reputational damage,” said Dan Purcell, CEO and founder of Midnight Labs. “Native digital rights management built on manual processes simply cannot keep up with AI-generated infringement, leaving legal and content protection teams frustrated.
“We’re making law enforcement independent by scanning, finding, proving and removing pirated content faster than it can spread, returning control to IP owners over their content, reputation and revenue. The support of the Sony Innovation Fund accelerates that mission.”
Midnight, which was founded in 2025, said it has removed more than 2.8bn pieces of infringing content across games, 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 includes the collection of legal-level evidence directly in an automated pipeline, “with all reductions” supported by “masses of forensic evidence, including time-stamped screenshots, cryptographic hashes, historical HTML sources and full network records”, allowing subsequent litigation and court proceedings following the removal of content.
The company says its internal AI platform continuously scans over 75m sources – including on the dark web and non-compliant platforms – and identifies threats in real-time to automate mitigation, containment and compliance workflows.
Expanding into Japan with Sony’s funding will enable Midnight to operate in a country it says is “particularly vulnerable to AI-generated copyright infringement” due to a “sophisticated digital piracy organization” operating on an “unprecedented scale” there.
“Midnight Labs tackles 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 called Ceartas, which the company says is aimed at “protecting the world’s largest content creators and creators’ economic products from imitation, piracy and deepfakes”, and was “founded to fight exploitation and protect victims of illegal content”.
Don’t miss out on the information you need to succeed. Sign up for Daily BriefSilicon Republic’s digest of must-know sci-tech news.
