Apple Sued by Three YouTube Channels

[MacRumors]

Three established YouTube channels have sued Apple, alleging that the company violated the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by unlawfully accessing and scraping millions of copyrighted videos from YouTube to train its AI models.

In a class action lawsuit filed in California federal court last week, the owners of the YouTube channels h3h3Productions (plus H3 Podcast and H3 Podcast Highlights), MrShortGame Golf, and Golfholics allege that Apple "deliberately circumvented" YouTube's protections against video scraping and "profited substantially" by doing so.

Apple's research papers indicate that some of the YouTube videos uploaded by the plaintiffs were used to train its AI models, the complaint alleges.

Apple's actions were "not only unlawful, but an unconscionable attack on the community of content creators whose content is used to fuel the multi-trillion-dollar generative AI industry without any compensation," the lawsuit adds.

The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction and damages individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated in the U.S., per the complaint.

In recent months, the same three YouTube channels have filed similar lawsuits against other tech giants, including Meta, Nvidia, ByteDance, and Snap.

h3h3Productions is a well-known YouTube channel created by Ethan Klein and Hila Klein, and they later created the H3 Podcast. Their channels have millions of followers, while MrShortGame Golf and Golfholics have hundreds of thousands of followers.

Article Link: Apple Sued by Three YouTube Channels

 

[MacUserFella]

Wait until those three YouTubers realize all AI companies steal from the internet

 

[steviewondercansee]

Dunno, cry harder? Every major AI company is training on YouTube videos.

 

[boswald]

Talk about burying your head in the sand. Do these people not understand how AI works? I mean, I feel bad for them for losing their products and such, but come on. You can't keep anything anymore.

 

[appledos]

We're going to need some clarity in the law sooner or later. The content these creators contribute to the training model is a drop in the bucket. Their individual work is so trivial that omitting it entirely won't materially change the model. However, if we get to the point where models cannot be trained then we're going to end up in a situation where the astonishing capabilities unlocked with this technology will only be available to those with the most resources—and to those who live under more liberal copyright laws. American citizens may find themselves less and less able to leverage these groundbreaking technologies because we've been hobbled by our antiquated copyright laws.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Dunno, cry harder? Every major AI company is training on YouTube videos.

It doesn't make it right. Widespread unethical behavior is still unethical.

 

[tranceme]

So, can they sue me if i watched their public videos learned something? Although, I guess in my case, I'll have gotten dumber watching YouTube.

 

[DavidLeblond]

Apple's response: "Come on, judge. Look at Apple Intelligence. You think this was TRAINED?"

 

[tranceme]

I assume they are suing Google too. Gemini definitely uses YouTube videos.

 

[KillerTree]

It doesn't make it right. Widespread unethical behavior is still unethical.

What’s unethical about learning from a public video?

 

[JM]

Morgan Freeman in Dark Knight says “Good luck.”

 

[robvalentine]

I assume they are suing Google too. Gemini definitely uses YouTube videos.

Given google owns youtube, it's probably in the terms and conditions

 

[NMBob]

I thought once you put something on YouTube it's no longer "yours".

 

[WarmWinterHat]

What’s unethical about learning from a public video?

It's not, on an individual level. I think a for-profit company doing it, without direct permission (and possibly compensation), is unethical, however.

As for these specific channels. I don't know anything about them, and have never watched them.

 

[MrPol]

Another fail by Ethan “pedo troll”.

 

[Non-Euclidean]

Morgan Freeman in Dark Knight says “Good luck.”

"Didn't you get the memo?"

 

[Rychiar]

Apple's response: "Come on, judge. Look at Apple Intelligence. You think this was TRAINED?"

BINGO! 😂 did these YouTube channels inspire a Genmoji somewhere or something?

 

[furbzv1]

ah! so thats why Apple Intelligence is not that intelligent!

 

[Entilzha]

*looks at who is suing*

Well. I expect this comment section to go well and absolutely not off the rails.

That said, if Apple is training their AI on YouTube videos, they need to do a better job since the training obviously isn’t working too well.

 

[tranceme]

It doesn't make it right. Widespread unethical behavior is still unethical.

So, I guess every search engine should be sued. They all read content on the web and return results. Even before AI. Keep in mind, this is public content these creators put out there and they are not redistributing it. Not sure what is unethical about this. Heck MacRumors editors go out and research public content web sites/stories and then post articles about it here. Should they be sued?

 

[nathan_reilly]

ethan klein really has displayed a pattern of frivolous lawsuits huh???

 

[tranceme]

Given google own youtube, it's probably in the terms and conditions

Good point. Makes sense

 

[Momento_Mori]

It doesn't make it right. Widespread unethical behavior is still unethical.

Ethics in the United States no longer exist….

 

[lepetitnicolas]

Once upon a time there was an old mother pig who had three little pigs and not enough food to feed them. So when they were old enough, she sent them out into YouTube to seek their fortunes.

The first little pig was very lazy. He didn't want to work at all and he built his YouTube channel out of laughs and comedy. The second little pig worked a little bit harder but he was somewhat lazy too and he built his channel out of golf balls he found on the ground. Then, they sang and danced and played together the rest of the day.

The third little pig worked hard all day and built his house with golf clubs, golf balls and Tiger Woods parts. It was a sturdy house complete with a fine golf course including putting green and bunkers. It looked like it could withstand the strongest AI.

The next day, all the AI companies happened to pass by the website where the three little pigs had their channels; and they saw the data, and they smelled the free content. They thought the pig's channels would make a mighty fine meal to train their models and their mouth began to water....

I'm tired to type. I let you imagine what's next on the story.

 

[steviewondercansee]

It doesn't make it right. Widespread unethical behavior is still unethical.

It was never wrong.

I watch youtube. I learn from youtube. I regurgitate what I learned. If I regurgitate exactly what I saw then that would be plagiarism. However, if I *transformed* what I watched, it's fair game (something of which H3H3 argued for in court and won).