Apple just filed a response to three YouTube channels that filed a lawsuit against the company over AI training data earlier this year, but it hasn’t apologized. So the company’s defense is that these creators uploaded their videos online for free, so it shouldn’t be shocking if Apple sees them.
Even if you’ve never uploaded a video before, here’s why you should be careful. The lawsuit is about how the AI features built into the iPhone actually made it smarter, and whether the people who made it possible stand to gain anything from it.
Explaining the Apple AI lawsuit
Back in April, three YouTube channels, heheProductions, MrShortGame Golf, and Golfholics, filed a class action lawsuit against Apple. They accuse Apple of illegally scraping millions of videos to train its AI models.
The complaint was based on the DMCA’s anti-circumvention rules. YouTubers claimed that Apple bypassed YouTube’s anti-scraping mechanisms and obtained unrelated video files. The same channel also filed similar lawsuits against Meta, Nvidia, ByteDance, and Snap.
Apple claims: There was no lock to open.
In a motion to dismiss filed in the Northern District of California on July 1, Apple did not deny accessing the videos. Instead, the company argued that such actions were not illegal because the videos were publicly accessible.
“No password, no payment, no lock, no key,” Apple’s lawyers wrote. They argued that YouTube’s anti-scraping tools govern the use of videos, not their access, and that the DMCA provisions the plaintiffs are complaining about cover only the latter.
This is a clear legal and practical distinction. Apple is essentially claiming that streaming publicly available YouTube videos is not a break-in, no matter how many videos are stolen. The company is also asking the judge to throw out the lawsuit entirely with prejudice. This means the plaintiff will never receive a do-over.
This isn’t a first for Apple
This isn’t the first time Apple has faced AI copyright infringement, and it probably won’t be the last. The company is also preparing to defend its App Store rules in the Supreme Court against Epic Games. There’s also a UK class action lawsuit over iCloud pricing.
AI training data has become a legal minefield for nearly every major technology company racing to develop smarter assistants. An overhaul of Siri is also part of that competition.
For now, whether Apple’s “public” claims will serve as a legal shield is up to Judge Richard Seeborg, who will hear arguments on August 6th. If Apple wins, it could set a template for all AI companies to lean on. But if it loses, it could spark an entirely different debate online about what “publicly available” means, and it could have direct ramifications for how Apple and other companies build AI tools for the next iPhone update.
Anurag Chawake is a technology-focused writer specializing in smartphones, apps, and consumer technology. His interest in computers began during the Windows 98 era and eventually led him to explore everything from operating systems to mobile devices to PC hardware. Anurag has previously contributed indian expresscovering Apple, Android, gaming, and the broader technology landscape.
