The Internet Celebrated When YouTube Tore Down Fake AI Film Trailers, So Why Did Hollywood Not Kill Them Sooner?

Welcome to Rendering, a Deadline column reporting at the intersection of AI and showbiz. Rendering examines how artificial intelligence is disrupting the entertainment industry, taking you inside key battlegrounds and spotlighting change makers wielding the technology for good and ill. Got a story about AI? Rendering wants to hear from you: jkanter@deadline.com.

This edition: As YouTube‘s purge of AI-fuelled fake movie trailers is celebrated, we consider why Hollywood studios did not take action sooner against the nuisance videos.

“They took down Screen Culture? Jesus f***ing Christ YouTube, that’s the best Christmas present you could have given us.” That was the view of one Reddit poster after Deadline revealed last week that YouTube had shut down Screen Culture and KH Studio, two of the most prolific fake film trailer channels on the internet.

This person was far from alone. One thread featuring our story had 43,000 upvotes in the movies subreddit. Over on X/Twitter, the aggregator account Culture Crave posted the news, getting more than 4M views. The engagement on these posts was overwhelmingly celebratory, with people hailing the decision as long overdue and a “rare win” for YouTube.

Screen Culture and KH Studio were active for years, persistently posting fake movie trailers that spliced together official film footage with generative AI embellishments. The two accounts had well over 2M followers and more than a billion views between them. For India-based Screen Culture, it was an enterprise, earning millions of dollars in revenue.

Deadline wrote a deep dive on the channels in March, revealing that they were gaming YouTube’s algorithm and duping users into thinking they were clicking on official trailers.

YouTube took note, initially banning ads on the channels because they were misleading viewers. Both changed their ways, adding clarity to video titles, so instead of labeling trailers “new” or “first,” they were described as “fan” or “concept” trailers. Quietly and slowly, however, they returned to their old ways. When we flagged this to YouTube earlier this month, it terminated the channels, citing violations of its spam and misleading metadata policies.

Screen Culture and KH Studio are dead because of a technicality, not because of their liberal use of generative AI, or because Hollywood studios demanded they be purged for exploiting IP without permission. The former is hardly shocking, given the volume of AI slop that now sloshes around the internet. What is more surprising is that the major studios did not take action sooner.

While there have been piecemeal takedowns or monetization strikes, Screen Culture and KH Studios’ growth shows that studios were not systematic in their approach. In fact, as we revealed in March, quite the opposite. Instead of tearing down videos, Warner Bros. quietly claimed Screen Culture’s ad revenue on AI-fuelled trailers for Superman and House of the Dragon. We found examples of Sony and Paramount doing the same thing. 

What makes this even weirder is that while Warner Bros. was pocketing cash from Screen Culture videos that used Midjourney to deepfake Superman, Warner Bros. would later sue Midjourney for deepfaking Superman.

When approached for comment earlier this year, Warner Bros., Disney, Paramount, Sony, and others declined to explain why they were letting fake trailers slide. Even the studios’ trade body, the Motion Picture Association, stayed silent. 

In this vacuum, all we can do is speculate on the reasons for this curious phenomenon. Money? Seems unlikely, given the revenue claimed from Screen Culture was little more than loose change. Free marketing? Fan-made trailers are as old as YouTube itself. Some are appreciated as an art form in their own right. All can help promote a movie.

But what Screen Culture did was industrial, and there is evidence its videos were harmful, diluting official trailers and enraging legions of YouTube users who thought they were clicking on the real deal.

Another explanation for the unchecked rise of fake film trailers is that policing IP in the age of artificial intelligence is complicated, and there are still inconsistencies in approach. The technology is so ubiquitous, and the rights theft so systematic, that cracking down on all infringement must be like a dog chasing its tail. 

Studios are picking their battles and hoping that they can make enough noise to send a message. It is no coincidence that, fresh from partnering with OpenAI, Disney let it be known that it sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google, claiming that the tech giant’s AI models infringe on its copyrights on a “massive scale.”

Google listened, taking down dozens of videos from YouTube featuring Mickey Mouse and Deadpool. But there are plenty of other examples on YouTube, not least the surging fake trailer channel Teaser Universe, which has amassed millions of views for AI Avengers: Doomsday trailers, sold to viewers with titles that make them look official.

That Screen Culture and KH Studio’s demise has been so widely celebrated suggests Hollywood should be paying more attention to fake trailer farms. As one Reddit user put it: “This is the one thing that finally has all of fandom in agreement.”