Twitch Streamer Sues Amazon Over AI Training Using Broadcasts Without Consent

Twitch and Amazon hit with lawsuit for training AI with streamers' content - Engadget

The class action suit claims that Amazon never obtained consent from Twitch streamers to be used to train its AI models. A streamer has taken a stand against Twitch and Amazon using his content to train AI models. Warren Pandiscia, a streamer based in Connecticut, filed a class action lawsuit earlier this week, as first reported by Courthouse News. The complaint accused Twitch and Amazon of not obtaining licensing or permission before using his Twitch streams and videos as a "dataset necessary to fuel Amazon's AI products." Earlier this month, Twitch Support posted on X that it added an option to opt out of "having your channel content used to train generative AI content models across Amazon." Shortly after, Twitch hosted an episode of its recurring Patch Notes stream where Mike Minton, the company's chief product officer, said "if it was opt-in, nobody would opt in," when asked by a viewer why the Twitch settings for AI training aren't opt-in but instead enabled by default, requiring users to opt out if they don't want to participate. Now, the latest class action lawsuit claims that Twitch and Amazon committed a breach of contract when the companies decided to use its streamers as "free training stock for separate commercial AI products." The complaint also accused the two companies of benefitting from their streamers, who "lost money or property as a result of defendants' unlawful, unfair and fraudulent practices." Amazon isn't the only company that's been hit with a lawsuit for allegedly using content creators for AI training. Earlier this year, three YouTubers filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, accusing the company of scraping copyrighted content to train its AI models.

A Twitch streamer is suing Amazon, alleging his broadcasts were used to train AI without his permission

A Twitch streamer has filed a proposed class action against the platform and its parent company Amazon, claiming his broadcasts, and those of countless other creators, were fed into generative AI training with neither consent nor payment. According to Courthouse News, plaintiff Warren Pandiscia - a Twitch creator with around 1000 followers - filed his 37-page complaint in the Northern District of California last week. It alleges Twitch and Amazon copied vast quantities of streamer footage without securing proper licences, a breach of creators' implied agreements with the platform and a violation of state unfair competition law. Twitch announced it would start training generative AI models on the platform earlier this month. Its community of streamers immediately pushed back, with demands that these AI features be optional the most popular request by miles. Streamers demanded to know why this feature was on by default, forcing users to manually go into the settings to opt out from generative AI training. Chief product officer Mike Minton offered a surprisingly candid response to this question, insisting that "if it was opt in, nobody would opt in. So it's going to be on by default, and almost every content service in the world is on by default". "The thing we're doing here that is unique is different is respecting your wishes to opt out of model training," Minton added. "I know this is not a fan favourite, I know it's very upsetting to the community, but this is where we are." The new lawsuit follows Twitch's own admission, made via a post on X on 12th August, that it uses creator content, including streams, past clips, chat logs, and photos, to train Amazon's AI models and, crucially, the opt-out isn't retroactive. The setting isn't universal, though. It's tied to individual channels rather than accounts, so a streamer who opts out can still have their content used if they show up on someone else's stream that hasn't. Pandiscia claims he had no reason to suspect his content was being used this way, opted out as soon as the setting existed, and argues the companies had been quietly using streamer content for AI training as far back as 2024, before any disclosure or opt-out mechanism was in place. Neither Twitch nor Amazon has yet responded to Courthouse News' request for comment. Amazon acquired Twitch in 2014 for roughly $970 million. This approach to embracing generative AI has impacted other parts of the company too. Amazon Game Studios, prior to mass layoffs which gutted the developer, was working on a generative AI game which was ultimately cancelled when all the developers were let go.