A proposed class action filed on January 23, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California alleges that Snap Inc. bypassed YouTube’s technical protections, collected millions of videos, and used them in developing commercial generative-AI systems. The complaint names Ted Entertainment Inc., Matt Fisher, and Golfholics Inc. as plaintiffs. It asks for statutory damages and a permanent injunction, but no court has found that Snap infringed copyright or violated the DMCA.
The lawsuit at a glance
| Detail | What the filing says |
|---|---|
| Filed | January 23, 2026 |
| Court | U.S. District Court for the Central District of California |
| Case | No. 2:26-cv-00754 |
| Defendant | Snap Inc., Snapchat’s parent company |
| Plaintiffs | Ted Entertainment Inc., Matt Fisher, and Golfholics Inc. |
| Filing status | Proposed class action; certification has not been established |
| Requested relief | Statutory damages and a permanent injunction |
The complaint is available at the filed complaint. TechCrunch’s contemporaneous account describes the case as a proposed class action involving creators with about 6.2 million collective subscribers: TechCrunch, January 26, 2026.
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What the creators allege Snap did
According to the complaint, Snap accessed and scraped millions of YouTube videos, circumvented YouTube’s technological measures, and used the material as training data for generative-AI systems. The plaintiffs say Snap intended to develop and commercialize those systems without permission from, or compensation to, the creators.
Those are allegations, not established facts. The filing does not itself prove that Snap downloaded every identified video, assembled every dataset, or used every video in a commercial model. The plaintiffs will need evidence connecting the datasets, Snap’s conduct, and the claimed products.
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Which creators are involved
Ted Entertainment and H3 channels
Ted Entertainment Inc. is associated with h3h3 Productions and H3 Podcast Highlights. The complaint identifies videos from H3 Podcast Highlights as appearing in the two datasets at issue.
Matt Fisher and MrShortGame Golf
Matt Fisher is associated with the MrShortGame Golf channel. The complaint treats his videos as part of the alleged dataset use.
Golfholics
Golfholics Inc. operates the Golfholics channel and is another named plaintiff. Together, the plaintiffs seek to represent a broader group of similarly situated YouTube creators, but that proposed class has not been certified.
Why HD-VILA-100M and Panda-70M matter
The complaint names two large video datasets: HD-VILA-100M and Panda-70M. Plaintiffs allege that the relevant datasets or associated materials were restricted to academic or research use and that Snap’s alleged commercial development exceeded those restrictions. A copy hosted by the Copyright Alliance is available at the complaint PDF.
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|---|---|---|
| H3 Podcast Highlights | 285 videos alleged to appear | 283 videos alleged to appear |
| Golfholics | 62 videos alleged to appear | 62 videos alleged to appear |
Dataset inclusion is not conclusive proof of Snap’s conduct. It shows, as alleged, that videos were present in identified datasets. Further evidence would be needed to establish who obtained the videos, whether Snap obtained or created the datasets, whether Snap used the complete videos or extracted material, and whether the data supported pretraining, fine-tuning, evaluation, or another purpose.
Two separate legal questions
- License scope: Did a dataset’s terms permit commercial use, or limit access to research?
- Copyright: Was copying and using the underlying audiovisual works lawful independently of any dataset license?
A research-use restriction could raise a contract or license issue without deciding the copyright question. Conversely, a possible copyright defense would not automatically authorize a use that breached a dataset agreement.
What AI systems are implicated
The complaint describes a broader generative-AI system capable of producing video from text and image inputs. News coverage also connects the alleged training activity with Snapchat’s Imagine Lens, a feature that lets users modify images with text prompts.
These references should not be collapsed into one product. The available materials do not establish that every allegedly scraped video trained Imagine Lens, or that Imagine Lens itself is a text-to-video system. The plaintiffs’ theory concerns Snap’s generative-AI development more broadly, while Imagine Lens is the public-facing feature specifically mentioned in reporting.
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The main legal theories
Copyright infringement
The case may turn on several different acts: downloading or reproducing videos, incorporating material into training processes, and any later use of a model or output. The complaint does not make “AI training” a settled category of infringement. Questions include whether copying occurred, whether the use was transformative, whether complete creative works were used, and whether the conduct affected existing or emerging licensing markets.
DMCA anti-circumvention
The complaint’s distinctive feature is its allegation that Snap bypassed YouTube’s technological protections. Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act can address circumvention of a technological measure that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work.
That is not the same as merely violating a website’s terms. Plaintiffs would need to identify the relevant technical measure, explain how it controlled access, and show what Snap allegedly did to bypass it. A rule against scraping, by itself, does not automatically establish DMCA anti-circumvention liability.
Dataset licenses and platform rules
The plaintiffs may rely on alleged research-only restrictions, YouTube’s terms, or other contractual theories. Those claims are legally distinct from copyright infringement and from Section 1201. Their outcome would depend on the actual license language, the parties’ relationships, and the claims ultimately allowed to proceed.
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Fair use
Snap could argue that copying for machine-learning analysis is transformative and does not substitute for the original videos. Plaintiffs would likely emphasize the commercial purpose, the creative nature of audiovisual works, the scale and completeness of the copying, and a potential market for licensed AI-training data. Courts have not adopted a universal rule that all AI training is either fair use or infringement.
Class certification
Filing a proposed class action does not make every affected creator a member of a certified class. The plaintiffs would later need to satisfy procedural requirements concerning common issues, typicality, adequacy, and other class-action standards.
Damages and an injunction
The complaint seeks statutory damages and a permanent injunction. Those requests do not guarantee a particular payout or mean that an injunction would necessarily shut down Snap’s AI systems. Any remedy would depend on liability findings, proof, and later court orders.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What evidence is still missing publicly
- Documents showing that Snap directly downloaded, commissioned, or obtained the videos.
- Internal records linking the named datasets to commercial model training.
- Technical evidence identifying whether Snap used full videos, frames, captions, metadata, or embeddings.
- Proof of the datasets’ precise license terms and any alleged breach.
- Evidence that the model memorized or reproduced a plaintiff’s expressive content.
- A verified Snap response to this particular complaint.
The complaint identifies allegedly matching videos and dataset counts, but the publicly available materials do not establish every step between a video’s appearance in a dataset and Snap’s commercial systems.
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What the filing does—and does not—prove
- It establishes that plaintiffs filed a federal complaint on January 23, 2026.
- It records allegations about scraping, circumvention, dataset use, and commercial AI development.
- It does not establish that Snap infringed copyright, violated the DMCA, breached a license, or used any particular video unlawfully.
- It does not show that Imagine Lens is identical to the broader alleged text-and-image-to-video system.
- It does not certify a nationwide class or create a legal precedent.
Why creators and AI companies are watching
The case places training-data provenance, access controls, and creator compensation in the same dispute. Discovery could test whether companies obtained data lawfully, whether research datasets were repurposed commercially, and whether technical barriers were actually bypassed. A ruling could influence licensing and documentation practices, but this lawsuit would not automatically create a universal requirement that AI companies license every training work.
Its significance will depend on motions, evidence, and any later rulings. The filing alone does not change the law governing AI training.
What happens next
- Snap may answer the complaint or seek dismissal.
- The parties may litigate amendments, jurisdiction, standing, and the legal sufficiency of the copyright, DMCA, license, and related claims.
- If the case proceeds, discovery could address dataset provenance, technical controls, training methods, and model behavior.
- The court may consider class certification separately from the merits.
- The case could end through settlement, dismissal, summary judgment, or trial.
The materials available for this article do not establish a later ruling, settlement, dismissal, discovery result, or direct Snap statement.
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