As National Football League games unfolded last weekend, millions watched clips of spectacular plays on TV and on social media. But across the Atlantic Ocean, on the screens of a little-known company in London called Net Result, hired hands of the league were not hunting for great highlights but for violators of N.F.L. copyrights.
Using its own software to identify infringing content, along with online searches by staff members, it has filed more than 1,000 notices this season to social media sites such as Twitter demanding the removal of clips that violate the league’s copyright. Many were GIFs—animated images known as a graphics interchange format.