Two YouTube channels, which specialise in making fake, AI-generated trailers of major films, have just lost their ad revenue.
The experience of searching for trailers on YouTube could be about to change, as YouTube is said to have turned off monetisation for two of the platform’s major accounts. Collectively, the channels Screen Culture and KH Studio have a subscriber base of 2m users, and have long specialised in uploading fake trailers for popular movies and TV shows.
Over the past day, Screen Culture uploaded a supposed ‘release trailer’ for A Minecraft Movie, which mixes genuine footage with AI-generated material. Similarly, KH Studio recently uploaded a trailer for 'Fast X: Part 2’ which blends sequences from Fast X, shots from Jason Statham’s The Beekeeper and generative AI imagery. Both have already notched up hundreds of thousands of views.
Previously, these channels have enjoyed considerable advertising revenue from their output, with YouTube’s algorithms placing them high in search results. A search for ‘Superman trailer’, for example, places two of Screen Culture’s fake Superman trailers in the results, not far below DC’s official promo. A search for ‘Alien: Earth trailer’ places one of the channel’s bogus clips beneath FX’s own official clip.
It’s seldom clear from titles alone that these uploads are fake, which increases the likelihood of clicks for the channels but can sometimes create confusion among users. A French TV station was taken in by an AI-generated Superman trailer last year – a mistake that didn’t go unnoticed by the real film’s director, James Gunn.
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According to Deadline, however, YouTube has since stemmed the flow of advertising revenue to those channels. The news comes just three days after the outlet’s earlier report that Warner Bros and other Hollywood studios have been asking YouTube for a slice of advertising revenue from fake trailers that use their footage. It’s unclear whether that under-the-radar deal will continue.
What’s surprising is how long it’s taken for YouTube to take notice of fake trailers in the first place. As Deadline points out, the company’s own policies warn against “misleading content” and state that any footage taken from other sources should be changed “significantly to make it your own.”
Fake trailers of one sort or another have been around for 20 years, but the advent of generative AI has seen them appear at a faster rate. Nikhil Chaudhari, the founder of Screen Culture, has said himself that he and his team are capable of generating around 12 videos per week. It remains to be seen whether YouTube’s demonetisation will dissuade the owners of these channels from cluttering up the platform with quite so many dodgy videos.
