Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is suing YouTube for allegedly allowing scammers to use images and videos of him to defraud people.

The scam, similar to one used in a Twitter hack, requested people send cryptocurrency, falsely promising they would receive twice as much back.

Mr Wozniak accused YouTube of failing to deal with the problem.

YouTube and Google have been contacted for comment but have not yet responded.

The complaint alleges the “vast” scam is continuing on YouTube, with tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency stolen.

As well as Mr Wozniak, the law firm Cotchett, Pitre and McCarthy is also representing 17 others affected by the fraud, from the US, UK, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, China and Europe.

In a statement, Mr Wozniak said: "If YouTube had acted quickly to stop this to a reasonable extent, we would not be here now.

"YouTube, like Google, seems to rely on algorithms and no special effort requiring custom software employed quickly in these cases of criminal activity.

“If a crime is being committed, you must be able to reach humans capable of stopping it.”

Google has a similar problem by allowing plagiarisers to make money from stolen content. It is smart enough to know where content was first published, however they generally allow site-rippers to steal content then use Google ads on those pages. Taking an excerpt and posting a link to the source is fine, but not whole articles that are being presented as the site’s own content. It wouldn’t surprise me if there is some class action lawsuit against them at some point in the future…