YouTube demonetized two of its sloppiest fake trailer accounts 

Screen Culture and KH Studio, two of YouTube's biggest fake trailer accounts, have been demonetized by the company.

YouTube demonetized two of its sloppiest fake trailer accounts 
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YouTube is doing something we thought no internet company would ever do: Shutting off the money tube to the slop trough.

Days after revealing that studios were profiting off the nauseating AI-generated movie trailers clogging up internet searches, Deadline reports that YouTube has begun demonetizing the channels responsible for making YouTube a nightmare to use. YouTube has suspended its partnership program with the channels Screen Culture and KH Studio, both known for producing fake trailers that feature the eerie, dead-eyed, and stilted visages of famous actors in superhero costumes made through generative AI. Both channels are known for gravitating toward whatever lowest-hanging fruit YouTube’s algorithms will eat. Screen Culture, for example, made a slow transition from old-timey fan theory videos and supercut trailer edits, which at least required a modicum of work, creativity, and thought on the channel’s end, to AI-assisted “conecpt trailers” for movies that either did not exist or were about to come out. Videos like “Popeye The Sailor Man starring Connor McGregor” and “Back To The Future 4 starring Tom Holland” netted more than 7 million views a piece for KH Studio. The channel calls its work “concept videos” that are “not only a user-generated form of digital creativity but a way to create anticipation for future releases, working in tandem with current movie trailers.” We suppose the studios agreed because Warner Bros., Sony, and Paramount all claimed monetization for these “concept videos.”

By claiming monetization, the studios made a direct about-face from the studios’ agreement with SAG-AFTRA after the industry-cratering strikes that the studios kept going for months. “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,” the union said in a statement.

Speaking to Deadline, the KH Studio founder says that they’ve been running KH Studio full-time for three years and that it’s “tough to see it grouped under ‘misleading content’ in the demonetization decision when my goal has always been to explore creative possibilities – not to misrepresent real release.” You see that? KH Studio was helping these billion-dollar corporations advertise their products, not seemingly ripping off the intellectual property of hundreds of artists in hopes of people accidentally clicking on one of the studio’s seven “concept trailers” for Avatar 3, all of which contain the words “first trailer” in the title. Nothing is misleading about that.

Meanwhile, Screen Culture founder Nikhil P. Chaudhari believes most YouTube users know Screen Culture’s offerings are worthless junk, so there’s no big deal here. “What’s the harm?” they asked Deadline. Of course, there is harm. Aside from the environmental price being paid for the stupidest imaginable reason, the videos burden YouTube users who have to sift through all this garbage to find the video they’re looking for, which is par for the course on Google products these days.

 
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