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Ted Entertainment v Apple Inc

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Case Information
Case name Ted Entertainment v. Apple Inc[1]
Court U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California[1]
Docket 3:26-cv-02936-RS[1]
Filed April 3, 2026[1]
Judge(s) Richard Seeborg[2]
Plaintiffs Matt Fisher continues; Ted Entertainment, Inc. dismissed its own claims without prejudice on October 27, 2026[3]
Defendants Apple Inc.[1]
Case type Proposed civil class action[1]
Claims / issues DMCA § 1201: alleged circumvention of YouTube access controls for AI training[1]
Status October 27, 2026: Ted Entertainment voluntarily dismissed its own claims without prejudice; the notice expressly states that Matt Fisher remains a plaintiff.[3]

Ted Entertainment, Inc. v. Apple Inc. (N.D. Cal., Case 3:26-cv-02936) is a proposed class-action lawsuit filed on April 3, 2026, by YouTube content creators against Apple, alleging violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by circumventing YouTube's technological protection measures to train "Apple AI Video" models.[4]


October 9, 2026: Judge Richard Seeborg denied Apple’s motion to dismiss the DMCA § 1201(a) claim, finding the alleged access controls and circumvention sufficient at the pleading stage.[5]

Background

The October 9 order identifies Ted Entertainment, Inc. and Matt Fisher as the plaintiffs. They are content creators who upload original videos to YouTube and bring the action on behalf of themselves and a proposed class of creators who upload and share videos on the platform.[5]

Allegations

As summarized in the October 9 order, plaintiffs allege Apple used the HD-VILA-100M dataset to create Panda-70M and locate and download underlying YouTube videos outside the authorized playback environment. The court accepted well-pleaded allegations for purposes of the dismissal motion.[5]

Plaintiffs allege Apple circumvented YouTube's technological protection measures—including streaming-only delivery, API limits, access controls, rolling ciphers, and IP detection systems—to download millions of videos at scale.[4]

The plaintiffs allege violations of 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a), the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision.[4]

The plaintiffs seek:

  • Statutory damages under the DMCA
  • Class certification
  • Permanent injunctions against further circumvention[4]

October 9, 2026 dismissal ruling

Judge Richard Seeborg denied Apple’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion. The court held that the alleged rolling cipher, session-bound URLs, CAPTCHA challenges, proof-of-origin tokens and IP restrictions plausibly qualify as access controls under DMCA § 1201(a). Controls can regulate both access and use, and an authorized way to watch a video does not eliminate protection for the underlying file.[5]

The court rejected Apple’s argument that protected access controls must require affirmative user input such as a password or paywall. It found the alleged platform-side authentication and decryption processes sufficient, and held that allegations of descrambling tools, IP rotation and evasion of authorization measures plausibly pleaded circumvention. The ruling permits the claim to proceed on those allegations.[5]

October 27, 2026 partial voluntary dismissal

Ted Entertainment, Inc. filed a notice dismissing its claims against Apple without prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(i). The notice says it was filed before Apple served an answer or summary-judgment motion and preserves Ted Entertainment’s ability to participate or recover as a class member in this action. It expressly states that Matt Fisher remains a plaintiff.[3]

The notice concerns Ted Entertainment’s own claims; it does not dismiss Fisher’s claims, establish a settlement or decide the merits of the remaining DMCA claim.[3]

This case was filed alongside parallel lawsuits against OpenAI and Amazon.[4]

See Also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Court filing / case record, reviewed September 7, 2026
  2. ↑ Court filing / case record, reviewed September 7, 2026
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Ted Entertainment, Inc., notice of voluntary dismissal, ECF 63, filed October 27, 2026, pp. 1–4.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Piracy Monitor - YouTube publisher sues Apple, Amazon, OpenAI
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 N.D. California, Ted Entertainment, Inc. v. Apple Inc., No. 3:26-cv-02936-RS, ECF 61, order denying motion to dismiss, October 9, 2026, pp. 1–12, complete original court order reviewed October 13, 2026.
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