The Rights Alliance has just published our 2025 annual report, which provides an overview of all the initiatives, projects, and milestones that have characterized our work to protect the rights of the creative industries in 2025. In particular, new ways of using artificial intelligence, successful takedowns of illegal services, and efforts to combat illegal content on social media have defined the year.
“2025 has been a year in which we at the Rights Alliance have kept our eyes firmly on the ball. Amid a range of challenges related to the enforcement of rights, we have remained focused on our core mission. This has strengthened both our efforts and our professional focus, which is clearly reflected in this year’s results. Across nearly all enforcement activities and professional areas, we have elevated the quality of our work and intensified our efforts throughout 2025.”
So says Director Maria Fredenslund in the foreword to the Rights Alliance’s annual report, where, among other things, developments in artificial intelligence are highlighted as one of the year’s greatest challenges. Here, we delve into three highlights from the 2025 annual report.
1. New Ways of Using Artificial Intelligence
The work of the Rights Alliance shows that new ways of using artificial intelligence are increasingly challenging copyright protection. Through our research, we have documented that leading AI companies such as Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, and Midjourney have trained their AI models on copyrighted material – including books, articles, images, films, and music –sourced from piracy services and without permission from the rights holders.
Current transparency requirements also do not provide rights holders with real insight into what content the models are being trained on illegally. Our analysis of the situation facing rights holders points to two key challenges with the current rules. Firstly, concrete action from AI providers cannot be expected until at least August 2026, when the AI Regulation takes effect. Secondly, the documentation requirements are so limited and unclear that it is difficult in practice—especially for smaller rights holders—to protect their works.
At the same time, a new challenge has emerged regarding the use of artificial intelligence among students in higher education. A 2025 study shows that 25% of students have uploaded study materials or excerpts thereof to chatbots, and that 72% are unaware that this is illegal. This points to a significant need for education. Therefore, in 2025, the Rights Alliance has focused its efforts on raising awareness of the rules, including through the initiative ‘Os Der Elsker Viden,’ which aims to strengthen understanding of copyright, among other things.
2. Progress in blocking illegal services
Another key insight from our work in 2025 is that intensified efforts to block illegal services yield concrete results. This is particularly true in the IPTV sector, where, in collaboration with the Division Association, we secured the blocking of 10 illegal services through a court order requiring telecommunications companies to block access.
At the same time, we have worked on a total of four blocking cases – three in the areas of film, TV, and live sports, and one in the area of literature – which together have led to the blocking of 446 illegal websites. This shows that a targeted effort makes a difference, but also that the work is far from over.
Going forward, we will therefore also turn our attention to technical providers such as hosting and VPN services that enable the circumvention of blocks and thus undermine the protection of rights.
3. Illegal content is spreading on social media
Illegal content continues to spread on social media. That is why the Rights Alliance has stepped up its efforts to identify and document content that is shared and promoted to large user groups.
In 2025, efforts succeeded in removing searches and content related to “IPTV” on selected platforms, making it harder to find and access illegal services. At the same time, a number of posts and profiles were removed as part of these efforts.
Experience shows that targeted efforts can limit the spread of illegal content, but also that enforcement on social media continues to be challenged by a lack of accountability and insufficient action from the platforms themselves. This underscores the need for clear requirements regarding the platforms’ responsibilities moving forward.
You can read more about this year’s highlights and our work to protect creative content in the 2025 annual report, which has just been published here: