A group of YouTubers with roughly 6.2 million collective subscribers has added Snap to a growing list of tech companies they’re suing for allegedly scraping their videos without permission to train AI models.
The plaintiffs, internet content creators behind three YouTube channels, allege that Snap trained its AI systems on their video content for use in features like the app’s “Imagine Lens,” which allows users to edit images using text prompts. The creators have filed similar lawsuits against Nvidia, Meta, and ByteDance over similar matters.
In the proposed class action suit filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the YouTubers specifically call out Snap for its use of a large-scale video-language dataset known as HD-VILA-100M and others that were designed for only academic and research purposes. To use these datasets for commercial purposes, the plaintiffs claim 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 going forward. The case is being led by the creators behind the h3h3 YouTube channel, with 5.52 million subscribers, and the smaller golfing channels MrShortGame Golf and Golfholics.
The lawsuit is one of many pitting content creators against AI model providers. Copyright disputes have emerged from publishers, authors, newspapers, user-generated content sites, artists, and others. According to the nonprofit organization Copyright Alliance, over 70 copyright infringement cases have been filed against AI companies.
The legal question centers on whether using copyrighted material to train AI models constitutes fair use or copyright infringement. Tech companies argue that training AI on publicly available data falls under transformative fair use, similar to how search engines index web content. Creators argue that AI companies are monetizing their work without permission or compensation.
In some cases, like one between Meta and a group of authors, a judge has ruled in favor of the tech giant. In others, like the case between Anthropic and a group of authors, the AI company has settled with and paid out the plaintiffs to resolve their claims. Many cases remain in active litigation.
The outcome of these cases will shape how AI companies can legally acquire training data and whether content creators have meaningful control over how their work is used. For YouTube creators specifically, the question is whether uploading content to a public platform implies consent for AI training, or whether that represents a separate commercial use requiring explicit permission.
