A group of prominent YouTubers has expanded its legal battle over AI training data, adding Snap to a list of defendants accused of copyright infringement. The proposed class-action lawsuit alleges that the company scraped video content without permission to train its generative AI models, including features like the app’s “Imagine Lens” which creates images from text prompts.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, is led by the creators behind the h3h3 channel (5.52 million subscribers) and golfing channels MrShortGame Golf and Golfholics. This group had previously filed similar suits against other tech giants, including Nvidia, Meta, and ByteDance, signaling a coordinated effort by content creators to protect their intellectual property in the age of AI.
The Core Allegations
The plaintiffs claim that Snap utilized large-scale video-language datasets, such as HD-VILA-100M, which were explicitly designed for academic and research purposes only. The suit alleges that to leverage this data for commercial AI products, Snap had to circumvent YouTube’s terms of service, technological safeguards, and licensing restrictions that prohibit such use.
The creators are seeking statutory damages for the alleged copyright violations and a permanent injunction to prevent Snap from continuing to use their content for AI training in the future.
A Growing Legal Battleground
This case is the latest in a wave of over 70 copyright infringement lawsuits filed by creators, authors, artists, and publishers against AI companies. The central question in these disputes is whether using publicly available content to train commercial AI models constitutes fair use or copyright infringement.
The outcomes of these cases have been mixed. While some judges have sided with tech companies like Meta in disputes with authors, other AI firms like Anthropic have opted to settle with plaintiffs. The resolution of these high-profile cases in the U.S. will likely set crucial precedents for the entire industry.
Implications for the MENA AI Ecosystem
While this lawsuit is unfolding in the US, its reverberations are being closely watched by the tech community in the Middle East and North Africa. For the region’s burgeoning AI sector, the case highlights the significant legal and ethical risks associated with data sourcing for model training.
MENA-based AI startups that rely on scraping public data could face similar legal challenges as the region’s intellectual property laws evolve. This legal uncertainty may push VCs to conduct more rigorous due diligence on the data procurement practices of their portfolio companies. Conversely, it creates an opportunity for new businesses focused on ethically sourced and licensed data for AI training, potentially empowering MENA’s own vibrant content creator economy to monetize their work in new ways.
About Snap Inc.
Snap Inc. is a global technology company known for its multimedia messaging app, Snapchat. Founded in 2011, the company defines itself as a camera company, developing products like Snapchat, Spectacles, and various augmented reality features that empower users to express themselves and communicate visually.
Source: TechCrunch
