Sony invests in Midnight Labs
June 5, 2026



Midnight Labs, a specialist in predictive IP protection for entertainment, gaming and content industries, has announced an investment from the Sony Innovation Fund. The investment will fuel the expansion of Midnight Labs’ agentic Enforcement Engine to protect entertainment IP from mass piracy, deepfakes and AI-generated infringement in the US and Japanese markets.

To date, Midnight Labs has removed more than 2.8 billion pieces of infringing content, protecting some of the world’s largest streaming platforms, podcast networks, talent agencies and Fortune 100 executives. Through its creator-focused product, Ceartas, Midnight Labs also protects a number of content creators and creator-economy brands.


“Generative AI has industrialised piracy, exposing IP holders to both financial loss and real-time reputational damage,” commented 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.”

Midnight Labs backs every takedown with a forensic evidence bundle, including time-stamped screenshots, cryptographic hashes, HTML source archives and full network records. This approach turns enforcement from a reactive legal chore into a proactive asset for rights holders and ensures IP holders receive litigation-ready documentation without manual work.

Midnight Labs secures the full IP chain against generative AI misuse, deepfakes and piracy, including creator content, brand identity, NILV (Name/Image/Likeness/Voice), character likeness, studio assets, and audio/video content, including live streams. 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. Critically, Midnight Labs does not rely on external AI models, ensuring full privacy, security and control of sensitive material.

Manga remains the most pirated content globally, and sophisticated digital piracy syndicates operate at unprecedented scale in Japan, making the country uniquely vulnerable to AI-generated copyright infringement. 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 before damage spreads.

“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,” added Antonio Avitabile, Managing Director, Sony Ventures EMEA.