Snap Faces Lawsuit From Creators Over Alleged AI Data Misuse

A legal conflict between online creators and companies dedicated to artificial intelligence has entered an increasingly personal and sharper stage. In recent weeks, well-known YouTubers have filed suits in federal court against Snap alleging that the company built its artificial intelligence capabilities on the basis of their copyrighted material. 

In the complaint, there is a familiar but unresolved question for the digital economy: Can the vast archives of video created by creators that power the internet be repurposed to train commercial artificial intelligence systems without the knowledge or consent of the creators? 

Among the participants in the proposed class action, which was filed in the Central District Court of California on Friday, are internet personalities whose combined YouTube audience exceeds 6.2 million subscribers.

According to Snap, the videos they uploaded to YouTube were scraped to be used as datasets for training AI models on Snapchat, which were scraped in violation of platform rules as well as federal copyright laws.

A similar claim has previously been brought against Nvidia, Meta, and ByteDance by the plaintiffs, claiming that a growing segment of the artificial intelligence industry is relying on creator content without authorization. Specifically, the YouTubers contend that Snap was using large-scale video-language datasets, including HD-VILA-100M, developed for academic and research purposes rather than commercial applications. 

The newly filed complaint specifically challenges Snap’s reported use of these datasets.

Upon filing the lawsuit, YouTube has asserted that any commercial use would have been subject to YouTube’s technological safeguards, terms of service, and licensing restrictions. Plaintiffs argue that these limitations were bypassed in order for Snap’s AI systems to incorporate the material. 

In addition to statutory damages, the lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction prohibiting further alleged infringements.

Among the participants are the creators of the YouTube channel h3h3, which has a subscriber base of 5.52 million, as well as the golf-focused channels MrShortGame Golf and Golfholics. 

The case is one of the latest in a series of copyright disputes between users and artificial intelligence developers.

Recently, publishers, authors, newspapers, artists, and user-generated content platforms have brought similar claims. As reported by the nonprofit Copyright Alliance, over 70 copyright infringement lawsuits have been filed against artificial intelligence companies to date with varying outcomes. 

Several cases involving Meta and a group of authors were resolved in favor of the technology company by a federal judge. In another case involving Anthropic and authors, the company reached a settlement. Several other cases are still pending, which leaves courts with the task of defining how technological innovation intersects with intellectual property rights in our rapidly evolving age.

There are a number of individuals in the U.S. who have uploaded original video content to YouTube and whose works have allegedly been incorporated into the large-scale video datasets referenced in the complaint. The proposed class entails more than just the named plaintiffs, but all U.S-based individuals who have uploaded original video content to YouTube. 

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