Apple filed a motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit on July 2, arguing that publicly available YouTube videos do not qualify for legal protection against circumvention under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The lawsuit, filed in April 2026 by the owners of h3h3Productions, MrShortGame Golf, and Golfholics, accuses Apple of deliberately circumventing YouTube’s anti-scraping protections and profiting from unlawful access to build the Panda-70M dataset, used to train the STIV video generation model. Apple’s response hinges on a narrow legal interpretation: because the videos are publicly viewable without password, payment, or authentication, YouTube’s technological measures do not “control access” to the works as Section 1201(a) of the DMCA requires. Apple stated that “Plaintiffs allege that they posted audiovisual works to YouTube, and that any member of the public can see them there. No password. No payment. No lock. No key.” The three creators have filed equivalent lawsuits against Meta, Nvidia, ByteDance, and Snap, signaling an organized legal front over unpaid use of creator content for AI training.