Artificial Intelligence on YouTube: Hollywood studios are not blocking fake trailers, but are making money on them
Kyiv • UNN
Hollywood studios are making money on fake trailers created by AI instead of blocking them. They receive advertising revenue from these videos, even though it violates copyright.
Fake trailers generated by artificial intelligence have flooded YouTube, and Hollywood studios seem not only not to oppose this, but also profit from it. Instead of blocking videos for copyright infringement, some film studios are demanding that YouTube transfer to them the advertising revenue that appears on these videos. This is reported by Deadline, writes UNN.
Details
Fake trailers are a new wave of content on YouTube that combines footage from official videos with generated images, creating the illusion of real movie announcements. Some of them mislead viewers, and YouTube algorithms promote them above official trailers.
According to Deadline, instead of enforcing copyright on counterfeit advertising, several Hollywood studios are asking YouTube to ensure that advertising revenue from views goes to them.
The most popular channels, such as Screen Culture, use AI to create increasingly realistic fake trailers, including well-known franchises such as "Mission Impossible" and "Fantastic Four". These videos often get millions of views and generate significant advertising revenue. But even when studios ask YouTube to monetize such videos for their benefit, questions arise about the protection of intellectual property and the rights of actors who appear in the films used in such trailers.
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People have been posting fake trailers since the dawn of YouTube in 2005. One of the earliest examples that went viral was an imaginary sequel to "Titanic" in which Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack Dawson finds himself in an ice floe under the ocean and comes back to life in modern New York - all to a fiery dance remix of Celine Dion's song My Heart Will Go On. The trailer was updated in 2018 by VJ4rawr2, an Australian YouTube blogger considered one of the first authors of so-called conceptual trailers. "Titanic 2: Jack is back" garnered 53 million views before VJ4rawr2's original video was blocked by 20th Century Fox.
Fake trailers on YouTube are not a new phenomenon, but they are becoming more numerous and more sophisticated. At the same time, trailers have become an increasingly important part of the film marketing machine, and studios are touting record views in the hope that this will translate into movie ticket sales or subscriptions. At least publicly, studios seem to be responding with a collective shrug to what some consider AI slop on YouTube, despite the fact that CEOs like Bob Iger are speaking out about the need to protect intellectual property and respect talent.
