YouTube officially shuts down several fake AI movie trailer channels after growing concerns

With AI-generated movie teaser trailers going viral these days, YouTube has now officially taken strict action against a few channels that usually appear on trending, known for promoting and creating “the dupe” versions of hyped franchise films’ trailers. A leaked clip of Avengers: Doomsday recently went viral, sparking rumors about Chris Evans returning to the Marvel Universe this season. These kinds of leaks or fan-made videos confuse fans and also concern the official studios. 

Having said that, Deadline has reported that YouTube has blocked two channels under the names Screen Culture and KH Studio.

The channels had over 2 million subscribers and their videos reached around 1 billion views, but now YouTube has permanently shut them down, leaving the owners with no access to the channels. These channels are based in India and Georgia. 

The editors combined real movie clips with high-quality AI images to make the videos look more like the original to the fans, without having a description stating a “fan-created version.”

These leak clips then trend across social media, raising concerns of misleading content. 

YouTube shuts down two channels on its platform over concerns about fake AI movie trailers

These two channels were not suddenly banned. According to Deadline’s investigation, they had received a warning earlier. YouTube had initially blocked its ad revenue, but later restored it after the channels agreed to follow the platform’s rules.

They had agreed to label their videos as “fan-made” or “AI trailers” in the description, but later failed to do so. This ultimately led YouTube to shut down the channels.  

YouTube is taking strict action against AI movie trailers that confuse viewers and has clearly warned creators by shutting down these two channels that "they must be transparent about using AI.''

Nikhil P. Chaudhari is reported to be the owner of the now-banned channel Screen Culture. Before the release of Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps in July, the channel uploaded around 23 different versions of the movie’s trailer.

The issue started when some of these videos ranked higher on the trending page than the official trailers. 

Are studios promoting these leaked versions of movie trailers? 

It is not clear what happens behind the scenes, as some studios may support such content to create hype.

However, studios like Disney have taken action. The Mouse House has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google, claiming that YouTube’s AI tools and services were violating its copyrights on a “massive scale.’’

Deadline’s investigation reveals that some studios were taking ad revenue from these AI movie trailers.

However, YouTube is now focusing on maintaining the authenticity of its platform by banning such channels. Going forward, creators will now need to clearly label and specify whether a video is real or fan-made, which will help stop the spread of online rumors.