NEW DELHI/WASHINGTON – In a escalating battle over ethics and intellectual property rights in the age of artificial intelligence, Google’s YouTube has removed hundreds of AI-generated Bollywood videos that had collectively amassed over 16 million views. The swift action followed a Reuters report that highlighted the continued presence of content similar to videos at the centre of a high-profile legal challenge filed by a renowned celebrity couple.
Bollywood stars Abhishek Bachchan and his wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan have petitioned a New Delhi judge to not only remove existing AI-manipulated videos but also to prohibit the future creation of content that infringes upon their personality rights. Their landmark lawsuit also explicitly challenges YouTube’s AI training policy, raising crucial questions about the ethical responsibilities of tech platforms.
While a judge had previously ordered the takedown of a handful of specific links last month, the problem’s scale was revealed this week when Reuters reported that the platform still hosted hundreds of similar videos, some featuring celebrities kissing or using their digital likenesses in suggestive, fabricated romantic scenarios.
The pressure resulted in the complete removal on Friday of a popular YouTube channel titled “AI Bollywood Ishq,” which had been a major hub for such content. The channel previously featured 259 videos that had garnered a staggering 16.5 million views. The most-watched clip on the channel, viewed 4.1 million times, showed an AI animation of Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai in a swimming pool—a provocative pairing given the actors’ past relationship. The channel link now simply states: “This page isn’t available.”
YouTube confirmed the takedown in an email to Reuters, stating the channel flagged in the news agency’s report was deleted by the creator and is no longer available. While not elaborating on the specific channel’s self-deletion, the company reiterated its policy: it prohibits harmful misinformation and removes content that has been “technically manipulated or doctored in a way that misleads users.”
The battle is far from over. The Bachchans are currently seeking $450,000 in damages against Google and other smaller websites for the unauthorized use of their images and likeness. Furthermore, despite the high-profile removal, several other infringing videos—including a clip showing Abhishek’s likeness being digitally manipulated to kiss a film actress—were reported to still be accessible on YouTube as of Friday, highlighting the persistent challenges of policing digital identity in a market where India is YouTube’s largest globally, with approximately 600 million users.
