YouTubers are suing Snap for allegedly infringing their copyright while training their AI models

A group of YouTubers suing the tech giant for scraping videos without permission to train AI models has now added Snap to the list of defendants. The plaintiffs – the internet content creators behind a trio of YouTube channels with an estimated 6.2 million collective subscribers – say Snap has trained its AI system on video content for use in “app”-like AI features.Imagine the Lens“which allows users to edit images using text prompts.

The plaintiffs previously filed a similar lawsuit Nvidia, Meta, and ByteDance about the same thing.

In the newly filed proposed class action suitfiled Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the YouTubers specifically cited Snap for using a large video-language data set known as HD-VILA-100Metc. designed for academic and research purposes only. By using this data set for commercial purposes, the plaintiffs claim Snap circumvented YouTube’s technology restrictions, terms of service, and license restrictions, which prohibit commercial use.

The suit seeks statutory damages and a permanent injunction to stop the alleged copyright infringement.

The case itself is led by the creators behind it h3h3 YouTube channel, with 5.52 million subscribers, and smaller golf channels MrShortGame Golf and Golfoholics.

Now one of many content creation lawsuits to the provider of the AI ​​model, which has included copyright disputes from publisher, author, newspaper, user generated content site, artistand apart. It is also not the first time case for the origin of a YouTubers. According to the nonprofit organization Copyright Alliance, over 70 cases of copyright infringement has been submitted to AI companies.

In some cases, like one in between Meta and author groupsThe judge has ruled in favor of the tech giant. In the other, like the case between Anthropic and the author groupThe AI ​​giant has settled and paid the plaintiffs to settle their claims. Many cases are still active in litigation.

Snap was asked for comment. TechCrunch will update when available.