LegalTech Diaries Volume 19
Charlotte Cresswell
Co-Founder & CEO
IProtect
LegalTech Diaries Volume 19
Charlotte Cresswell
Co-Founder & CEO
IProtect
IProtect charges no upfront fees, retainers or hourly billing, and takes its share only when rights holders get paid. How does that model change which cases you choose to pursue?
It makes us honest about what’s worth chasing. We only get paid when our clients do, so every case starts with one question: can we actually recover money here? That pushes us towards infringers who have funds we can reach, such as marketplace sellers whose balances can be frozen through Schedule A litigation in the US. It also means we sometimes say no, or send a case to a law firm partner when that’s the better route for the client.
What it doesn’t mean is ignoring the smaller stuff. Takedowns of listings still happen every day, because recoveries from the bigger cases fund the rest of the programme. The client gets full coverage without a monthly bill, and we’re motivated by results, not hours. It’s the same incentive the client has, which is rare in this industry.
Rights holders often end up juggling takedown agencies, litigation firms and deepfake monitoring tools, each with its own invoices and points of failure. Why was bringing counterfeiting, copyright and deepfake enforcement under one roof the right fix?
Because infringers don’t stay in one lane. The same operation selling fake merchandise is often re-uploading the client’s content and running ads with an AI version of their face. When three different providers each see a different slice, nobody joins the dots, and the rights holder pays three invoices to fight one problem.
Under one roof, IProtect sees the whole picture. We can link sellers across platforms, build stronger evidence and decide which route gets the best result, whether that’s a takedown, a monetisation claim or litigation. Money recovered on one front helps fund work on another. And the client has one report and one team to call when something goes wrong.
I’ve worked on both sides, in brand protection and at a law firm, and I saw first-hand where enforcement became fragmented. Agencies, lawyers and monitoring tools were all working in silos, and evidence rarely made it from one to the next. We built IProtect to close those gaps.
Deepfakes and AI impersonation are raising fresh questions about personality rights. What do you think rights holders are most underestimating about that threat right now?
That it’s already a commercial problem, not a future reputational one. Most deepfakes we see aren’t viral hoaxes. They’re scam ads and fake endorsements using a real person’s face or voice to sell products, at volume, every day. Each one quietly takes money and trust from the real brand.
The second thing is how much they can already do. People assume that because the law on likeness is still catching up, they’re powerless until it does. They aren’t. Platforms have their own rules against impersonation and misleading use of someone’s likeness, and we’re using them to get deepfakes taken down right now. For most rights holders, the gap isn’t the law. It’s that nobody is actually looking for the fakes and acting on them.
And speed matters more than anything. Most of the damage from a deepfake happens in its first few hours online. If you’re only finding it when a fan emails you, you’re already too late.
