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For a long time, fake videos have been online. Even we got fooled ourselves with a recent trailer for Ballerina, thinking it was real, but it wasn’t. Add AI into all this fakery, and it’s hard to tell what is real and what is fake, even in videos.
The new Superman trailer dropped in the last month, and as soon as it was up, the fakers started to play. There are many videos online showing clips from the real trailer, mixed with AI and other clips that are basically clickbait.
In one case, a French national TV station was duped into sharing a fake AI Superman trailer last year. It showed David Corenswet in the cape and boots, months before there was anything official from DC or Gunn.
It’s odd that YouTube is all over music copyright, but when it comes to fake videos they seem to turn a blind eye. Some of the fake videos are monetized, meaning the fakers are making a bit of money on them.
Instead of enforcing copyright on fake videos, Deadline revealed that some Hollywood studios are asking YouTube to make sure they get their money’s worth. This means that any ad revenue from fake videos, the money flows in their direction. They seem to be willing to take cash for content that exploits their IP and talent.
Fairly recently, the Actors’ Union SAG-AFTRA, went on strike over their images being used without permission. Now, it seems studios are fine with exploiting their work, as long as it brings in dollars.
Faking Videos is a Business
I’m not going to list the names, but there are now YouTube channels that only make fake videos and make a living from it. One video, based on Titanic, has had over 53 million views. A friend of mine had a video go viral recently. He had 100k views and earned about £300 from it.
When the video came out for the new Fantastic Four movie it was a big hit. If you search for it now, some of the fake trailers have more hits than the official one. In fact, the same channel that fakes these trailers has videos that have had more hits than the official Thunderbolts and Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning trailers.
It’s estimated that one channel must have a turnover of millions of dollars each year. The owner of the channel has an Instagram account where he shows off his supercars and luxury holidays.
The owner of the channel claims that his fake videos only help the real movie/trailers. Maybe this is why YouTube doesn’t enforce the copyright on most of his work.
However, Warner Brothers recently claimed the monetization on this channel, so it won’t receive a copyright strike (three within 90 days, and you can be banned). Instead, they made sure they received the money from the videos.
Other companies are following suit. Sony over Spider-man and Kraven. Paramount over Gladiator II.
What’s the Harm?
The channel’s owner says that his videos aren’t harmful, but SAG-AFTRA disagrees. They are not happy that studios are making money off videos that exploit its members likenesses without permission. In a recent statement, they said:
“Just as SAG-AFTRA is aggressively bargaining contract terms and creating laws to protect and enforce our members’ voice and likeness rights, we expect our bargaining partners to aggressively enforce their IP from any, and all AI misappropriation.”
“Monetizing unauthorized, unwanted, and subpar uses of human-centered IP is a race to the bottom. It incentivizes technology companies and short-term gains at the expense of lasting human creative endeavor.”
It seems studios only want to make money, which can’t be true. They only want to create great content, right?
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