Sony invests seven figures in AI copyright protection startup

According to Business Post, the total came to approximately seven figures. The financing is intended to develop the start-up’s agentic Enforcement Engine.

Self-styled as “the internet’s delete button”, Midnight Labs is reportedly the first enforcement platform to deliver court-admissible evidence at scale, with 2.8 billion takedowns and counting. The platform backs every takedown with a forensic evidence bundle, including time-stamped screenshots, cryptographic hashes, HTML source archives, and full network records. According to Midnight Labs, it delivers these automated enforcement workflows that once took weeks in minutes, performing 120 hours of scanning, detection, analysis, verification, and removal in just 60 seconds.

Through its creator-focused product, Ceartas (the Gaelic word for justice), Midnight Labs also protects creator-economy brands. Unlike traditional legacy solutions that focus on counterfeit goods, Midnight Labs focuses on the content that most directly undermines revenue and erodes reputation, including pirated films, leaked music, cloned livestreams, and weaponised deepfakes targeting talent and executives.

The platform continuously scans more than 75 million sources, including the dark web and non-compliant platforms, identifies threats in real time, and automates takedowns, filings, and compliance workflows. Midnight Labs does not rely on external AI models to enhance its privacy, security, and control of sensitive material.

This partnership comes as research reveals that video piracy alone will drive an estimated $125bn in annual revenue leakage by 2028.

The market expansion in Japan and APAC is set to focus on manga, due to the format’s high piracy rates and Japan’s sophisticated digital piracy syndicates. The investment from the Sony Innovation Fund accelerates Midnight Labs’ expansion in Japan and across APAC, giving the company a stronghold to dismantle these networks by removing content and neutralising threats.

Antonio Avitabile, Managing Director, Sony Ventures EMEA, said: “Midnight Labs is tackling an important and increasingly complex problem for the creative industries. We are pleased to support the team and look forward to collaborating as they build solutions for rights holders worldwide”.

“Generative AI has industrialised piracy, exposing IP holders to both financial loss and real-time reputational damage,” said Dan Purcell, CEO and Founder of Midnight Labs. “A single deepfake of a CEO, created in seconds and distributed across thousands of sites, can cause immediate, catastrophic harm before a legal team can even open a ticket. 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.”

Anna Tobin recently investigated how today’s technological advances have supported a rapid increase in piracy, and how both rights holders and pirates are now looking to harness its power. Discover more here.