YouTube’s janitors are swooping in to mop up the slop.
As reported by Deadline, the Google-owned video platform has terminated two massive YouTube channels that peddled fake, AI-generated movie trailers, in what is one of the most high profile actions it’s taken against the AI spam polluting the platform.
Combined, the channels — called Screen Culture, based in India, and KH Studio, based in the US — boasted over two million subscribers and more than one billion views.
“The monster was defeated,” one YouTuber told Deadline after the slop channels were taken down.
Whatever your thoughts on AI imagery, these channels weren’t using the tech to innocently envision some fanboy’s dream casting. They were unquestionably farming engagement by using AI shots spliced together with actual copyrighted movie footage to trick viewers, per Deadline, and then posting the fake trailers early to drown out the real ones. In March, for example, Screen Culture churned out an outrageous 23 different trailers for “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” with some of them outranking the official trailer, Deadline found.
Why is YouTube banning them now? The channels, apparently, had gotten cocky. YouTube had quietly suspended their ability to make ad revenue after a Deadline investigation earlier this year, but were able to claw back ad money after adding “fan trailer,” “parody,” and “concept trailer” to their video titles. But, for reasons unknown, both slop slingers stopped including those disclaimers in recent months, thus inviting the ban hammer.
The decision comes as AI continues to make inroads into the actual movie industry — and as AI-spoofed trailers become a hot button issue. Users of OpenAI’s video generating app Sora have been churning out loads of AI-spoofed Disney trailers, including a Pixar-style animation about Jeffrey Epstein inviting children to his “amazing” island — a trend that didn’t seem to bother Disney when it announced it would invest $1 billion into OpenAI and officially license its characters for Sora last week.
What this means for the rest of all the other slop polluting YouTube is unclear. The platform is still overrun with AI-generated music, hours-long informational videos presented in a “boring” or “sleepy” style, and even veritable snuff films. Some are using AI to impersonate public figures, garnering hundreds of thousands of views. What probably happened here is that the AI movie trailer channels simply played fast and loose with copyright laws for too long, ticked off the wrong IP owners, and got kicked to the curb. And good riddance.
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