Many individuals find the first trailer of something on YouTube; sometimes they have been waiting a long time for a new video, and other times they just happened upon it. However, there is a darker side to the site where users submit phony movie trailers on purpose to acquire popularity and rely on it being a “concept” or “fan trailer.” The developments in the field of artificial intelligence have only made things worse. A video generator can be prompted to put something together, and occasionally it can appear passable.
Two of the most infamous phony trailer producers, Screen Culture and KH Studios, were demonetized by YouTube earlier this year as a result of a Deadline investigation that examined how they create their trailers without, at the time, identifying them as “fan trailers.” The marketing approach of a number of well-known films was closely imitated in the videos. For instance, Screen Culture released 23 spoof Fantastic Four: First Steps trailers, some of which even outperformed the genuine one.
YouTube reinstated said monetization after they began adding that they aren’t official to titles with “fan trailer.” They stopped doing that, though, in recent times, and now Deadline breaks that YouTube has had enough.
In response to Deadline at the time, KH Studio’s founder asserted that they weren’t running it to mislead viewers, but rather entertain them.
“I’ve been running KH Studio full-time for over three years now, putting everything into it. 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 releases,”
Meanwhile, Nikhil P. Chaudhari, the founder of Screen Culture asserts that there isn’t any harm in their unofficial videos, as most people are aware Screen Culture isn’t sharing exclusive trailers they got from official sources. The problem is that they splice together official footage alongside fake footage made to solely game the YouTube algorithm.