Three YouTube channels sue Apple for extracting their content without authorization to train their AI models

The owners of the YouTube channels h3h3Productions, MrShortGame Golf y Golfholics They have sued Apple by illegally access and extract millions of videos protected by copyright in order to train your artificial intelligence (AI) models.

The complainants allege that, by dealing with protected content without authorization, the Cupertino company is violating the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Specifically, the lawsuit accuses Apple of circumventing the “controlled streaming architecture” that YouTube users are subject to, which includes protective technology measures (MTPs) that restrict and monitor access to videos.

“The defendant’s actions were not only illegal, but constituted a unacceptable attack against the community of content creatorswhose contents are used to boost the multi-trillion-dollar generative AI industry without receiving any compensation,” the lawsuit states.

The channels have demanded a court order and compensation for damagesso much at the individual level as well as at the collective level on behalf of the rest of those affected in the United States.

The lawsuit has been filed by the channels h3h3Productionswhich has 5.5 million subscribers; MrShortGame Golfcon 525,000 subscribers; y Golfholicscon 133,000 subscriberswhich already They have also denounced other companies such as Meta, Nvidia, ByteDance and Snap for similar reasons, as reported by the specialized portal MacRumours.

This is not the first time that these types of claims have occurred. To cite a few cases, in December 2023 The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for the illegal use of millions of articles and investigations from the newspaper, protected by copyright, for the creation and training of artificial intelligence services.

Even before, in January 2023, a group of artists sued Stability AI, DeviantArt y Midjourneywho use the Stable Difussion tool, who were accused of infringing copyright in the development of works of art created by artificial intelligence for integrating protected creations that were being used without consent.