Three YouTube channels have banded together to file a class action lawsuit against Apple. mcroomers. According to the complaint, the creators of h3h3 Productions, MrShortGameGolf, and Golfholics accuse Apple of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by scraping copyrighted videos on YouTube to train AI models.
YouTubers’ videos can be viewed on the platform, but the lawsuit alleges that Apple illegally circumvented a “controlled streaming architecture” that is restricted to regular users. The creators claim that Apple’s video scraping was used to train their generative AI products, adding that the tech giant’s “massive financial success would not have been possible without the video content created by YouTubers.” mcroomers They noted that these YouTube channels have filed similar lawsuits against other technology companies, including Meta, Nvidia, ByteDance, and Snap.
This isn’t the first time a company has found itself in legal trouble over its AI training methods. OpenAI and Microsoft were both accused of using copyrighted articles from the NYTimes to train their AI chatbots. Similarly, Perplexity was recently sued by Reddit and Encyclopedia Britannica for alleged copyright and trademark infringement. Last year, Apple was also the subject of a separate class action lawsuit from two neuroscience professors who claim their copyrighted material was used without their permission. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment and will update this story when we hear back.
