YouTuber Files AI Data Scraping Lawsuit Against Nvidia
The Lyon Firm is investigating new class action claims against Nvidia, with plaintiffs alleging the company unlawfully scraped YouTube and Netflix data without prior consent. Our legal team is reviewing a wide range of data misuse lawsuits on behalf of plaintiffs nationwide.
If you believe Nvidia or another tech company has used your content without permission to train and build their generative AI models, contact our attorneys.
Why are YouTubers Suing Nvidia?
Google, OpenAI, and Nvidia are currently facing data scraping class action lawsuits from content creators on YouTube and other platforms, following allegations that the companies indiscriminately scraped media and other data sets from entire websites without the permission of those who created the content.
This week, one YouTube creator filed a class action lawsuit against Nvidia for “unjust enrichment and unfair competition.” The lawsuit claims the company scraped YouTube content to use it as training data for a new AI project.
It is no secret that generative AI models require a huge amount of data simply as a beginning training set. The particular Nvidia AI model in question is called Cosmos and is meant to be a video foundation program, which obviously would benefit from the content on Netflix, YouTube and other sites with a great deal of content.
One media outlet allegedly obtained Slack messages that showed Nvidia employees using YouTube video downloading tools to compile content, all the while discussing the legal and ethical implications.
Sources believe Nvidia has been using videos from YouTube, Netflix, Vimeo, and other websites to build an AI model. The has released a statement saying their business practices are “in full compliance” with copyright law.
Joe Lyon is currently involved in numerous data privacy lawsuits, and represents clients in all fifty states. Call our privacy lawyers for a free and confidential consultation regarding any YouTube copyright and AI data misuse claim.
Can Nvidia Lawfully Use YouTube Content?
This is not the first time a company has been sued for allegedly using internet content to help train and build generative AI software. OpenAI has been named as a defendant in several class action AI data misuse complaints. Last year, the New York Times filed a lawsuit and reported that while desperately seeking new data, OpenAI had built a speech-recognition tool to transcribe audio from YouTube videos.
It is assumed that essentially every company building a new AI model is training its models with some copyrighted content. Whether this is by design or unintentional is a bit murky. It is also unclear how the courts will ultimately treat these cases. There has not been a definitive ruling yet on whether using a content creator’s posts on YouTube to train AI models violates copyright law.
Our data privacy attorneys believe, however, that any company that uses your YouTube content, or any other content published on a website, has a duty to compensate you and ask your permission prior to taking it for their own purposes.
Can Any YouTuber File a Lawsuit Against Nvidia?
It is important to note that because of the vague nature of some copyright law, David Millette, the lead plaintiff and YouTuber, is not directly alleging copyright infringement. Rather, he is alleging that the company engaged in unethical business practices by data scraping YouTube without the permission of the copyright holders.
In line with typical data privacy and proprietary expectations, YouTube sees this practice as a violation of its policies, and Netflix has said that data scraping is against its terms of service. A spokesperson for Nvidia explained how the company might justify their actions in the following statement:
“Copyright law protects particular expressions but not facts, ideas, data, or information. Anyone is free to learn facts, ideas, data, or information from another source and use it to make their own expressions. Fair use also protects the ability to use a work for a transformative purpose, such as model training.”
According to the recent report, Nvidia downloaded 100,000 videos from YouTube and copied tens of millions of video URLs. They apparently used discreet software to steer clear of YouTube’s detection. Some leaked internal documentation claims these compiled data sets are exclusively to be used for academic research. Plaintiffs, however, say it is clear this act is ultimately for commercial gain.
The AI data misuse lawsuit filed against Nvidia on behalf of thousands of YouTubers alleges the company violated California’s Unfair Competition Law and enriched itself unfairly at the content creators’ expense, without compensation or consent. The California plaintiff is seeking an injunction of the unauthorized use of his videos, as well as damages exceeding $5 million.
Understanding AI Privacy and Data Misuse Lawsuits
Vast data collection goes hand-in-hand with the development of some amazing new technology, namely generative AI models (GenAI). This appears to be the only way to train and build accurate AI software, but it can come with a heavy cost to personal privacy. Data collection and data scraping practices can go too far and can result in plaintiffs filing class action data misuse lawsuits.
The Lyon Firm represents clients in all fifty states in various data privacy cases when companies violate copyright law and unlawfully use your content without permission. Joe Lyon has nearly two decades of experience defending consumer privacy issues and is now investigating the YouTube Nvidia lawsuit and other egregious instances of AI data misuse.
If you have reason to believe your published content on YouTube or another video platform has been scraped by Nvidia or another tech company, contact us to learn more about your legal options.