Hundreds of AI-generated Bollywood videos that garnered 16 million views have been removed from Google's YouTube following a Reuters report that highlighted their similarities to content at the heart of a legal dispute involving a celebrity couple wanting to safeguard their rights.
Bollywood stars Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan have petitioned a New Delhi court to eliminate AI videos that infringe on their intellectual property rights and to halt the creation of such content. Their legal challenge also questions YouTube's policies regarding AI training.
Although a judge had previously ordered the removal of a few YouTube links requested by the actors, Reuters revealed this week that the platform still hosted hundreds of comparable videos, featuring celebrities engaging in kisses or lookalikes engaging in romantic interactions through AI manipulation.
A well-known YouTube channel that shared "AI-generated Bollywood love stories" has been taken down. This channel, previously featuring 259 videos, some of a sexually explicit nature, had amassed 16.5 million views. Its link now displays: "This page isn't available," indicating that all its content has been removed.
Responding to queries from Reuters, YouTube shared via email that the channel highlighted in the news agency's report had been deleted by its creator and that the content is no longer accessible on the platform. The company did not provide further details on this account, named "AI Bollywood Ishq," but emphasized its commitment to prohibiting harmful misinformation and removing content that has been technically altered in ways that could mislead users. An attempt to contact the email address listed for the YouTube channel @AIbollywoodishq on Friday was unsuccessful, as the owner had not replied to Reuters earlier in the week.
India, with approximately 600 million users, stands as YouTube's largest market globally and is known for its abundance of entertainment content, particularly Bollywood videos. The most viewed video on the now-deleted channel depicted an AI animation showing Salman Khan and Aishwarya in a swimming pool, amassing 4.1 million views.
While some videos resembling those described in Abhishek's legal filings were still accessible on YouTube as of Friday, including one showing Abhishek posing before unexpectedly kissing a film actress through AI manipulation and an AI portrayal of Aishwarya and Khan enjoying a meal while Abhishek expresses frustration. The Bachchans are pursuing $450,000 in damages from Google and other lesser-known websites that market unauthorized merchandise featuring their images.
