The gunfight version of "Empresses in the Palace" is going to be banned

Author | Huang Yu

Editor | Liu Baodan

AI video generation applications have recently sparked a "magic modification" storm on short video platforms, with classics like "Empresses in the Palace" turning into "action films," "Dream of the Red Chamber" becoming "martial arts dramas," and Sun Wukong riding a motorcycle into the sunset.

However, this frenzy did not last long. On December 8, the National Radio and Television Administration's Network Audio-Visual Department issued a "Management Notice (AI Magic Modification)" pointing out that recently, AI "magic modification" videos have been blurring the lines between reality and fiction, with frequent occurrences of "magic modification" of classics. These videos, in pursuit of traffic, have no boundaries in desecrating classic IPs, impacting traditional cultural perceptions, contradicting the core spirit of the original works, and are suspected of constituting infringement.

To create a clear online audio-visual space, the "Management Notice" proposed specific management requirements. First, it requires relevant provincial bureaus to urge short video platforms within their jurisdictions to investigate and clean up short videos of AI "magic modification" films and report their work status by December 10.

Secondly, it strictly implements content review requirements for generative artificial intelligence, encouraging platforms to conduct self-inspections on their developed large models or AI special effects functions, to strictly monitor and control the access of various related technical products used and disseminated on their platforms, and to provide significant prompts for AI-generated content.

Douyin and Kuaishou are undoubtedly the hardest-hit areas of this regulation. As for the specific regulatory measures to be taken next, Douyin and Kuaishou have not yet responded to Wall Street News.

In fact, over the years, "magic modification" content has been quite common on various video platforms, and there has always been "secondary creation" of classic films and dramas, but previously, this was mostly achieved through editing software.

Now, with the rise of AI video generation applications, ordinary users can more easily achieve secondary creation of content, bringing about more exaggerated and vivid changes. In addition to "magic modification" of classic series, AI-generated kissing videos have also recently sparked controversy.

This year marks the first year of AI applications, with video generation being a direction that has the potential to spawn blockbuster applications. The emergence of the "text-to-video" model Sora at the beginning of the year has ignited a global competition for AI video generation.

So far, many large model manufacturers both domestically and internationally have launched video generation applications, including Kuaishou Keling AI, ByteDance's Jidream, Minimax's Conch AI, Alibaba's Tongyi Wanxiang, and Tencent's Hunyuan, which has recently added video generation capabilities.

Quantum Bit Think Tank points out that internet content is becoming fully video-oriented, with rich consumption scenarios for video content, and the potential market for AI video content generation is enormous. As the capabilities of AI video generation continue to improve, the proportion of AI-generated videos in video consumption content will continue to rise, driving changes in the content supply side and gradually penetrating the video consumption market.

According to Wall Street News, in this wave of "magic modification" of classic IPs, Kuaishou Keling AI and ByteDance's Jidream have been used more frequently by users, involving capabilities such as image-to-video, video dubbing, and driving 2D digital humans.

However, at present, among all AIGC applications, the user rankings of Kuaishou Keling AI and ByteDance's Jidream are not particularly high According to QuestMobile data, as of October 2024, the total number of monthly active users in the mobile AI native application sector reached 89.76 million, a year-on-year increase of 373%. Among them, Doubao, Kimi Smart Assistant, and Wen Xiaoyan had monthly active users of 48.39 million, 16.5 million, and 11.79 million, respectively.

In contrast, Kuaishou's Keling AI had only surpassed 1.5 million monthly active users in September, while ByteDance's Jidream reached 1.3 million by November.

However, at Kuaishou Technology's third-quarter earnings conference this year, founder and CEO Cheng Yixiao revealed that Keling AI's monthly revenue from commercialization has exceeded 10 million RMB.

Compared to large language models, video generation models are still in a relatively immature stage, facing challenges such as high computational demands, stringent data requirements, and complex algorithms. Additionally, the advancement of image-to-video generation is noticeably faster than that of text-to-video generation.

Even so, it can currently be observed that the works created by users utilizing AI image-to-video capabilities are still relatively rough overall.

AI is reshaping various industries and will bring unprecedented changes to the video creation industry, but there may be significant risks of infringement during this process.

Everyone must work together to maintain the healthy development of this industry to collectively await the day when it flourishes