YouTubers Sue Snap for Copyright Infringement Over AI Training
A group of YouTubers has filed a lawsuit against Snap, alleging the company used their videos without permission to train its AI models. The plaintiffs claim Snap misused academic datasets for commercial purposes.
Unauthorized Content Use for AI Training Back in Spotlight with New Lawsuit
Tech giant Snap has been sued in the US over allegations that it used YouTubers' content without permission to train its artificial intelligence systems. The creators behind three YouTube channels with a combined total of approximately 6.2 million subscribers claim Snap used their videos to develop features like its 'Imagine Lens'.
Allegations of Commercial Use for Academic Datasets
The plaintiffs allege that Snap used a large-scale video-language dataset called 'HD-VILA-100M' and similar ones for commercial purposes, despite them being designed solely for academic and research use. According to the claim, the company bypassed YouTube's technological restrictions, terms of service, and license limitations that prohibit commercial use to access this data. This situation brings the issue of data source ethics in AI development processes back to the center of verification and ethical debates, as discussed in the news titled AI Chatbots Begin Verifying User Age.
Plaintiffs Seek Compensation and Permanent Injunction
In a class action lawsuit filed in the US Central District Court of California on Friday, the creators of the h3h3 (5.52 million subscribers), MrShortGame Golf, and Golfholics channels demanded legal compensation and a permanent injunction to stop potential future copyright infringements. This lawsuit follows similar ones filed against Nvidia, Meta, and ByteDance.
Legal Battle Between Content Creators and AI Companies Grows
The Snap case is just one of the copyright disputes between publishers, authors, newspapers, artists, content creators, and AI model providers. According to the non-profit organization Copyright Alliance, over 70 copyright infringement lawsuits have been filed against AI companies. In some cases, like the one between Meta and a group of authors, the court ruled in favor of the tech giants. In others, such as when Anthropic reached a settlement and paid compensation to a group of authors, different outcomes occurred. These struggles parallel the social responsibility debates highlighted in the news titled Not Codes, But Consciences: Tech Workers Forcing CEOs to Take to the Streets.
While some lawsuits are still ongoing, other major players in the industry are also facing similar ethical and legal challenges. Platform X is under EU investigation due to content generated by its Grok AI, as detailed in the news titled EU Investigates X Platform Over Grok's Sexualized Deepfakes. Furthermore, the dilemmas such content creates in financial systems were also covered in the news titled Content Generated by Grok Puts Payment Systems in a Dilemma.
AI Development Methods Questioned
The ongoing legal processes are increasing concerns about the unauthorized use of vast amounts of internet data for training AI systems. This raises the question of what path other major AI systems, like Apple's Siri, will follow, as discussed in the news titled Siri's New Mind: Has Apple Finally Given Up?. Experts emphasize that companies need to turn towards more transparent and permission-based data sources, while it's noted that Snap has not yet responded to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
