YouTuber sues Runway AI in latest copyright class action over AI training
YouTuber David Gardner is suing Runway AI, alleging the company illegally used copyrighted YouTube videos to train its AI video generation platform.Summary
YouTuber David Gardner has filed a class action lawsuit against Runway AI in California federal court, claiming the company bypassed YouTube’s copyright protections to download user videos for training its AI video generation platform. The complaint, filed on February 23, 2026, alleges violations of YouTube’s terms of service and California’s unfair competition law, seeking unspecified monetary damages. This lawsuit is part of a growing wave of copyright cases against tech companies like OpenAI, Nvidia, Snap, Meta, and ByteDance, brought by creators concerned about the use of their work in AI training. Gardner is seeking to represent a larger group of rightsholders whose videos were allegedly scraped by Runway using data-scraping tools without permission. Runway AI, valued at over $5.3 billion, has not yet responded to the complaint, nor have representatives for YouTube’s parent company, Google.
(Source：The Hindu)