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YouTube has moved to demote and demonetize some of the platform’s largest AI-generated movie-trailer channels. The action follows a Deadline investigation into how channels like Screen Culture and KH Studio operate while profiting from fake trailers of real, unreleased films. These channels also proved to be redirecting ad dollars to major studios including Warner Bros., Discovery and Sony Pictures.
Despite studios’ claims to own the intellectual property, YouTube has concluded these channels violated its monetization and misinformation policies by misleading viewers with artificially generated content.
YouTube’s monetizing policies restrict “duplicative or repetitive” content created just to get views, while its disinformation policies forbid misleading editing that can be mistaken for official trailers. For this reason, YouTube deleted the video. The website claims that artificial intelligence (AI) works made from just composites of past shot material are not original content.
Overall, at least four major AI-trailer accounts have lost monetization privileges in the past month, signaling a broad effort to curb misleading, low-effort content.
With a 122 Million daily active users, YouTube had to come up with some means to handle the growing concerns about AI content. Since the demonetization, the platform also suspended these channels from the YouTube Partner Program, removing their ability to earn revenue from ads. Each channel boasted nearly a million subscribers and hundreds of millions of views. Two alternative channels, Screen Trailers and Royal Trailer, operated by the same creators, were also demonetized in subsequent waves of enforcement.
Affected creators can appeal their demonetization, and some channels have begun re‑labeling videos as “concept trailers” to signal their unofficial status. YouTube’s enforcement may prompt other AI-content channels to reassess their practices or face further revenue suspensions.
