In practice it's very rare for me to see a direct ipfs protocol link, almost all the traffic goes through HTTP gateways (which frequently cache the content as well). Hard to imagine that they don't become a target for "hosting" pirated content if / when IPFS becomes more than a negligible platform for piracy. (A significant amount of Library Genesis traffic is already using IPFS via these same gateways.)

As you mention, there's a DMCA process for some of the gateways, but that might not be enough to ward off attention.