A group of YouTubers suing technology companies for using their videos without permission to train artificial intelligence models has now added Snap to their lawsuit. The plaintiffs are internet content creators behind three YouTube channels with roughly 6.2 million collective subscribers. They allege that Snap trained its AI systems on their video content for features like the app’s “Imagine Lens,” which lets users edit images using text prompts.
The creators previously filed similar lawsuits against Nvidia, Meta, and ByteDance. In this new proposed class action, filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the YouTubers specifically point to Snap’s use of a large-scale dataset known as HD-VILA-100M, among others. They claim these datasets were designed only for academic and research purposes. The lawsuit alleges that to use them commercially, Snap circumvented YouTube’s technological restrictions, terms of service, and licensing limitations, which prohibit commercial use. The suit seeks statutory damages and a permanent injunction to stop the alleged copyright infringement.
The case is led by the creators behind the h3h3 YouTube channel, which has 5.52 million subscribers, and the smaller golfing channels MrShortGame Golf and Golfholics. This lawsuit is now one of many pitting content creators against AI model providers. These legal disputes have included copyright cases from publishers, authors, newspapers, user-generated content sites, artists, and others. It is also not the first case to come from a YouTuber. According to the nonprofit Copyright Alliance, over 70 copyright infringement cases have been filed against AI companies.
In some instances, like a case between Meta and a group of authors, a judge has ruled in favor of the tech giant. In others, such as a case between Anthropic and a group of authors, the AI company has settled and paid the plaintiffs. Many cases remain in active litigation.
Snap was asked for comment. TechCrunch will update if one is provided.