YouTube has permanently terminated two popular channels, Screen Culture and KH Studio, which had amassed over a billion views creating fake, AI-generated movie trailers for violating its platform policies. The move highlights the platform's escalating crackdown on deceptive synthetic media amid pressure from major IP holders.
Second strike: The channels had a history of skirting the rules. The platform previously demonetized the creators but reinstated them after they added "fan trailer" disclaimers, only to see the creators later drop the labels. A YouTube spokesperson stated the channels reverted to "clear violations of our spam and misleading metadata policies, and as a result, they have been terminated from the platform."
Follow the money: The takedowns expose a strange, and sometimes profitable, relationship between Hollywood and these creators. An earlier Deadline investigation revealed that instead of issuing takedowns, some studios, including Warner Bros. Discovery and Sony, had quietly arranged for YouTube to redirect the ad revenue from the fake trailers back to them.
Playing both sides: The crackdown comes just a week after Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google over copyright infringement. Even as it pressures Google, Disney is pouring $1 billion into OpenAI in a deal to bring its iconic characters to the Sora platform.
The terminations signal a new phase in the battle for content authenticity, as platforms are forced to draw clearer lines between creative fan-made content and deceptive, mass-produced AI "slop." But the cleanup might not be complete, as a dormant sister channel, "Screen Culture Plus," remains online. The recent terminations were also an escalation of a broader AI crackdown by Google, which had already pulled down dozens of other AI-generated videos featuring Disney characters just last week.
