The American YouTuber Ethan Klein confirmed that he had lost his copyright case against Twitch streamer Denims. Two days ago, the court papers showed that the judge ruled in Denims’ favor. Klein later spoke about the results through an Instagram story and clarified that he was not finished with the matter.
Klein further disagreed with the decision and appealed the process with the hope of having the case reviewed by a higher court. The court battle began last year after he brought a copyright case against Denims, which also included Morgan and Kacey.
Meanwhile, as per MacRumors, Apple has pushed to dismiss a separate class-action lawsuit filed by Klein and other YouTubers over alleged unauthorized AI video scraping. The YouTubers alleged that Apple was illegally using their videos to “train their AI models”. MacRumors shared Apple’s response, which stated:
“Plaintiffs allege that they posted audiovisual works to YouTube, and that any member of the public can see them there.”
Continue reading more about the case.
Denim drops a 4-hour fair use bomb
On July 1, 2026, a federal judge ruled in favor of streamer Denims and dismissed the allegations made by Ethan Klein. The court found that her use of Klein’s Content Nuke video was transformative and therefore protected under fair use.
Ethan openly opposed the Judge’s ruling and wrote on Instagram that it allows people to take traffic right after a video is released. He has also confirmed that he will challenge the ruling through an appeal.
The court further took an unusual decision and opened Klein’s 2017 case, Hosseinzadeh v. Klein. Matt Hosseinzadeh once filed a lawsuit after Ethan and Hila created a video where they commented on and criticized his copyrighted work. Ethan Klein’s video mixed clips from Hosseinzadeh’s original content with their own reactions.
The judge ruled that Denims’ 4-hour stream, where she often stopped and gave her own criticism of Ethan Klein’s 1 hour and 45 minute video, was protected under fair use.
Apple’s push to dismiss AI scraping lawsuit by Ethan Klein and other YouTubers
Apple submitted a formal reply on July 2 about a separate class-action case that Ethan Klein and other YouTubers filed, asking the federal court to dismiss the case permanently.
In April 2026, Klein’s h3h3Productions joined with creators MrShortGame Gold and Golfholics to file a lawsuit against Apple. h3h3Productions is a YouTube channel run by Ethan and his wife Hila. The couple creates reaction videos and comedy sketches that poke fun at online trends and digital culture.
MrShortGame Gold, Golfholics, and Klein’s h3h3Productions claimed that Apple broke the DMCA by bypassing YouTube’s anti-scraping protections and downloading millions of creator videos to train its generative AI models without permission or payment.
According to MacRumors, Apple’s complaint in a California federal court stated that the videos were posted publicly on YouTube with no password, no lock, no payment, and no key; the company did not bypass any valid access controls under Section 1201(a) of the DMCA.
The company also argues that YouTube’s Terms of Service allow public viewing of the data, so the plaintiffs have not presented a valid legal claim.
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Edited by Debashri Roy