The claim
The plaintiffs do not sue for copyright infringement. Their only claim is under § 1201(a), which bars circumventing a technological measure that controls access to a copyrighted work. They say YouTube protects uploaded videos with five measures, from a rolling cipher on video streams to proof-of-origin tokens, and that Runway defeated them with descrambling tools such as yt-dlp, rotating IP addresses and regenerating expired session-bound URLs (ECF 33 ¶¶ 39-59, 95-108; ECF 61 at 5).
Runway’s arguments
Runway moved to dismiss on 27 May 2026 (ECF 34). As the opinion describes them, its main points were that YouTube’s measures control copying, not access, and so fall outside § 1201(a); that a qualifying measure must make the work unintelligible until it is descrambled or decrypted; that free public viewing means nothing was gated; that no affirmative act disabled any measure; and that the plaintiffs had not shown the measures operate with their authority (ECF 61 at 8-14).
What Judge Kaplan held
| Question | Result | Reasoning (ECF 61) |
|---|---|---|
| Are the measures access controls? | ✓ Plausibly yes | Scrambling and encryption are examples, not the whole category. A measure can control both access and use. Viewing itself depends on authorized processes, and the measures block playback once triggered (at 9-13) |
| Does free public viewing defeat the claim? | ✕ No | Every viewer is subject to the same measures, so availability to the public does not take them outside the statute (at 10-12) |
| Was any measure circumvented? | ✓ Plausibly yes | The statute defines circumvention broadly; the complaint plausibly alleges that at least one measure was bypassed. The court did not require a separate affirmative act (at 13) |
| Authority of the copyright owner | ✓ Adequately alleged | Plaintiffs need not install the measures themselves; it is enough that they authorized YouTube to deploy them through the upload process (at 14) |
The opinion relies on Second Circuit and district authority on access controls, including Universal City Studios v. Corley and Yout v. RIAA, and on the Ninth Circuit’s Disney v. VidAngel for the point that one measure can serve both functions (ECF 61 at 8-10).
How it fits the other YouTube rulings
Courts that have ruled on the same theory against other AI developers this year have reached the same result at the pleading stage. The table lists the rulings we have seen. The Snap ruling is described from the Apple order, and the Fisher order from a news report; neither was reviewed directly. The California orders are linked from the Ted Entertainment v. OpenAI page.
| Case | Court and judge | Date | Result on § 1201(a) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ace Cam v. Runway AI | S.D.N.Y., Kaplan | 30 Oct 2026 | Motion to dismiss denied |
| Ted Entertainment v. Apple | N.D. Cal., Seeborg | 9 Oct 2026 | Motion to dismiss denied |
| Ted Entertainment v. ByteDance | N.D. Cal., Corley | 2 Oct 2026 | Motion to dismiss denied |
| Ted Entertainment v. Snap | C.D. Cal., Birotte | 19 Aug 2026 | Motion to dismiss denied (as cited in the Apple order at 7) |
| Ted Entertainment v. OpenAI | N.D. Cal., Labson Freeman | — | Briefed; no ruling in the sources reviewed |
| Fisher v. Meta | N.D. Cal., Tigar | — | Pending; supplemental briefing on the recent rulings ordered (as reported 2 Nov 2026) |
In Fisher v. Meta, ChatGPT Is Eating the World reported on 2 November that Judge Tigar asked the parties for supplemental briefs on these recent decisions. Meta’s pending motion argues, among other things, that the plaintiffs lack standing and that the measures are not access controls (No. 4:25-cv-10931, ECF 33). We have not reviewed the supplemental-briefing order itself.
None of these rulings decides whether Runway or any other defendant actually circumvented anything. They hold only that the complaints say enough to proceed to discovery.
Documents
| Date | ECF | Document | Filed by |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Feb 2026 | 1 | Class action complaint (Ace Cam, Inc. d/b/a Random Golf Club) | Plaintiffs |
| 27 Apr 2026 | 33 | Consolidated class action complaint | Plaintiffs |
| 27 May 2026 | 34 | Runway’s notice of motion to dismiss | Runway |
| 30 Oct 2026 | 61 | Memorandum opinion denying the motion to dismiss | Court (Judge Kaplan) |
| 13 May 2026 | 33 (4:25-cv-10931) | Meta’s motion to dismiss, Fisher v. Meta (filed as Ted Entertainment v. Meta) | Meta |
| 2 Nov 2026 | — | ChatGPT Is Eating the World: report of the supplemental-briefing order in Fisher v. Meta | Secondary source |
The complaint, consolidated complaint, notice of motion and Meta’s motion link to the public RECAP copies on CourtListener; the opinion links to the copy hosted by ChatGPT Is Eating the World. Runway’s memorandum (ECF 35), the Snap order and the Fisher supplemental-briefing order were not reviewed. Page references are to the opinion’s own page numbers.
Other cases on Docket Watch
- Publishers and authors v. SpaceX Super IntelligenceN.D. Cal. · Complaints filed
- Newspapers v. Brave SoftwareS.D.N.Y. · Complaints filed
- OpenAI MDL amicus briefsS.D.N.Y. · Amicus motions pending
- Alcon v. TeslaC.D. Cal. · Musk deposition dispute before the magistrate judge
- Ted Entertainment v. OpenAIN.D. Cal. · Motion to dismiss briefed; Ted Entertainment withdrew
- Book authors v. MetaN.D. Cal. · Complaints filed; three cases reported related to Kadrey
- Reservoir v. AnthropicN.D. Cal. · Complaint filed
- Reservoir v. SunoN.D. Cal. · Complaint filed
- Poseidon Wave v. Black Forest LabsE.D.N.Y. · Complaint filed
- Levine v. MetaN.D. Cal. · Complaint filed
- Rosen v. PichaiN.D. Ill. · Voluntarily dismissed; refiling planned (reported)
- Concord v. AnthropicN.D. Cal. · Summary judgment under submission
- ABG EPE IP v. AnthropicN.D. Cal. · Complaint filed
- Beaulier v. NVIDIAN.D. Cal. · Dismissed with leave to amend