Judge Grants YouTubers Standing in ByteDance Data-Mining Copyright Suit
A federal judge ruled that YouTubers Ted Entertainment and Matt Fisher have standing to sue ByteDance for scraping their videos to train AI models.
In a decision issued Friday, U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley affirmed that YouTubers Ted Entertainment and individual creator Matt Fisher have legal standing to pursue a copyright lawsuit against ByteDance, the parent of TikTok. The plaintiffs contend that ByteDance illegally scraped their YouTube videos, sidestepping platform protections, and used the material to train AI models that generate audiovisual content from text prompts.
They argue this breach cost them advertising and YouTube Premium revenue, constituting a pocketbook injury under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. ByteDance countered that the plaintiffs suffered no concrete harm and therefore lacked standing, citing cases lacking monetary damages. Corley rejected those precedents, emphasizing that the plaintiffs’ loss of per-view revenue directly linked the alleged circumvention to their injury.
The judge’s ruling allows the case to proceed beyond the pleading stage. Attorneys for both parties were unavailable for comment.
Why it matters
The ruling lets creators challenge large tech firms over AI training data, shaping future copyright enforcement.
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