Three YouTube channels have sued Apple, alleging that the company violated the US Copyright Act (DMCA) by illegally accessing and harvesting videos copyrighted from YouTube to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models.
In a class action lawsuit filed last week in California federal court, the owners of the YouTube h3h3Productions (plus H3 Podcast and H3 Podcast Highlights), MrShortGame Golf and Golfholics alleged that Apple “intentionally circumvented” YouTube’s protections against video collection and “substantially benefited” from this action.
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Apple's research shows that some of the YouTube videos uploaded by the plaintiffs were used to train its AI models .
Apple's actions were "not only illegal, but also a mindless attack on the community of content creators, whose content is used to fuel the generative AI industry without any compensation," the lawsuit adds.
YouTube channels seek damages from Apple
The plaintiffs are seeking injunctive relief and damages individually and on behalf of all others in a similar situation in the US.
In recent months, the same three YouTube channels have filed similar lawsuits against other tech giants, including Meta, Nvidia, ByteDance, and Snap.
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h3h3Productions is a well-known YouTube channel created by Ethan Klein and Hila Klein, who later created the H3 Podcast. Their channels have millions of followers, while MrShortGame Golf and Golfholics have hundreds of thousands of followers.
The case could be a turning point in the ongoing conflict between content creators and big tech companies. If the allegations prove to be true, Apple would face not only legal consequences but also a serious blow to its credibility , especially at a time when the development of artificial intelligence increasingly relies on third-party data.
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At the same time, the development of the lawsuit may pave the way for stricter regulation around the use of content on platforms like YouTube to train AI models. The outcome of this dispute could affect not only this company, but the entire generative AI ecosystem, setting new boundaries between innovation and copyright protection.
