YouTube Creators Sue Snap Over Alleged AI Training Using Their Videos

A new legal battle is taking shape over how AI companies source training data, and this time the spotlight falls on Snap.

According to TechCrunch, a group of YouTube content creators has filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Snap, accusing the company of using their videos without permission to train AI models.

Creators accuse Snap of unauthorized AI training

The plaintiffs collectively run three YouTube channels with a combined audience of around 6.2 million subscribers. They allege that Snap used their video content to develop AI-powered features, including the “Imagine Lens,” which allows users to edit images using text-based prompts.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and claims that Snap trained its AI systems using the HD-VILA-100M dataset and other large video-language datasets. The complaint states that these datasets were intended strictly for academic and research use, not for commercial AI products.

Alleged violations and demands

The creators argue that Snap violated YouTube’s terms of service, bypassed technological protections, and exceeded licensing limits by repurposing the datasets for commercial AI development. They seek statutory damages and a permanent injunction that would prevent Snap from using their content for future AI training.

This case adds Snap to a growing list of tech companies already facing similar lawsuits over AI data practices, including Nvidia, Meta, and ByteDance.

The lawsuit reflects a broader wave of copyright disputes tied to AI training datasets, with dozens of cases already filed across the tech industry. At the same time, social media companies continue to face separate legal pressure over alleged negative impacts on mental health.

In related developments, YouTube recently experienced service issues, and TikTok also suffered a brief outage, underscoring ongoing operational and legal challenges across major social platforms.