Twitch & Amazon Face Lawsuit Over AI Training by a Streamer

Twitch’s AI training controversy has now landed in court. A Connecticut-based streamer is suing Twitch and parent company Amazon, claiming creators’ videos were used to train generative AI without permission or compensation.

Twitch’s AI policy puts creators under the spotlight

Streamer Warren Pandiscia filed a proposed class-action lawsuit in California (via Courthouse News). He claims Twitch and Amazon copied millions of videos for AI development. The lawsuit alleges Twitch began scraping creator content as early as 2024.

Pandiscia says the companies violated contractual obligations and California unfair competition laws.Twitch confirmed earlier this month that Amazon can use streams, broadcasts, clips, chats, images, and text for AI training. The platform now provides an opt-out setting, but channels are automatically included unless creators change their settings.

That creates another complication. Twitch says the setting applies by channel, meaning content appearing on another opted-in channel may remain eligible for training.

Twitch defends its opt-out approach

Twitch’s chief product officer Mike Minton defended the decision during an August 12 stream. “If it was opt-in, nobody would opt-in. That’s honestly the answer,” Minton said. The company says AI training can support features across Amazon. One example involves using audio to improve speech-to-text models and captions.

Pandiscia argues creators should have been asked before their work entered AI training datasets. He says he opted out immediately after discovering the setting. The lawsuit seeks damages, restitution, disgorgement, and an injunction. It also claims creators cannot recover intellectual property already copied for training.