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- YouTube demonetized two channels for sharing AI-made fake trailers
- Some Hollywood studios secretly claimed ad revenue from the misleading trailers
- The crackdown comes amid new contracts and laws limiting unauthorized AI replicas
If you've ever visited YouTube and clicked on a trailer for the next superhero film and thought it seemed too good to be true, well, you might have been right. Wishful thinking, clever editing, and a scoop of AI fakery produced clips enticing billions of clicks and earning plenty of cash through advertising. The shocking part is that a lot of that money apparently found its way to the very studios you might expect to try and shut down any such unauthorized use of their intellectual property, at least according to information uncovered recently by Deadline.
That sidehustle may now be over with YouTube removing two of the biggest homes of these AI-laced fake trailers, Screen Culture and KH Studio, from its Partner Program. That means no more ad revenue for them or the studios reportedly getting a piece of the action.
Screen Culture has made many popular trailers full of AI-generated shots for upcoming films like The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman. KH Studio is more famous for its imaginary casting, like Leonardo DiCaprio in the next Squid Game or Henry Cavill as the next James Bond. You would be forgiven for assuming the plotlines, characters, and visuals on display were teasing details of the films, but they were produced far from the real film development.
The fakes were good enough to sometimes come up in searches before the real trailers, and enough clicks could prompt YouTube’s recommendation algorithm to highlight the fakes above the real deal. That translates into a lot of cash for a monetized video. That's likely why, according to Deadline, studios made arrangements with YouTube to redirect the ad revenue from these fake trailers into their own accounts.
Trailer tricks
Still, YouTube has its own rules. The monetization deal may have been okay in theory, but the channels broke other rules. For instance, to earn ad revenue, a creator can't just remix someone else's content; they need to add original elements. A reviewer might show a brief clip of a film to comment on it, but most of the video is the review, not the movie. You also can't copy others' work, mislead viewers, or make content for the “sole purpose of getting views.”
Screen Culture and KH Studio can appeal the demonetization, but that might be a long shot. YouTube's decision reflects a larger ongoing debate about AI in the entertainment industry. The SAG-AFTRA strike highlighted the demands of actors for limits and control of any AI replicas of people in film and TV. The final agreement reached following the long strike set out new rules for consent by a performer before any studio can use AI to mimic their likeness.
In case that wasn't clear enough, California lawmakers passed two bills barring the use of AI to recreate a performer’s voice or image without their consent, even posthumously. That makes it harder for studios or rogue creators to conjure digital versions of famous faces just to juice a trailer, real or otherwise.
YouTube is somewhat stuck as fan-made trailers have long been a popular kind of content. Using AI, though, can make a fake trailer seem good enough to trick people, even if only by accident. And YouTube doesn't want to encourage the practice by monetizing it. For now, the message from YouTube is clear: you can imagine a world where Cavill is Bond or Galactus shows up in Fantastic Four, but you can’t cash in on that fantasy if it's built only around AI.