The rapid rise of illegal ‘fast movie’ content(summarizing films into a short video) on platforms like YouTube is wreaking havoc on the film and drama industry. It is undermining the efforts of creators and distributors while drawing millions of views and profits away from legitimate sources. Fast movies refer to videos that condense entire films or series into short summaries, often including key plot points and endings.
At the end of 2022, the Korean drama ‘Big Bet’, produced by domestic companies like Arc Media, was released on an online streaming platform. With a massive budget of 20 billion won, it was a highly anticipated project due to the involvement of famous actors and its artistic quality. However, despite the buzz, the drama did not perform well on the streaming platform.
The situation was quite different on YouTube, where a one-hour video summarizing the entire drama garnered 3.2 million views, and over ten other videos surpassed 1 million views. What is concerning is that most of these were illegal videos that violated copyright laws.
An official from the Over-the-top media service (OTT) industry commented, “The popularity of fast movie content summarizing the entire drama on YouTube led to fewer people paying to watch it on our platform. This issue isn’t limited to ‘Big Bet’; the entire film and drama industry is being severely impacted by illegal content on these platforms.”
The rise of channels that illegally use news content for profit is also becoming more prominent, especially on YouTube. These channels easily create content by broadcasting news footage or reading out newspaper articles. One political channel with 10,000 subscribers uploaded over 150 short-form videos (under one minute) in the past two months, most of which were merely edited clips of S. Korean news broadcasts and radio interviews.
Although copyright infringement issues are becoming increasingly severe, platform companies maintain that they will remove content if a violation is reported and verified, yet they do not take proactive measures before such reports are made.
Experts point out that these illegal videos are becoming key channels for securing loyal subscribers who pay regular fees. Based on an analysis of market share and ad revenue, YouTube is estimated to have earned up to $853 million from subscription memberships in S. Korea alone last year.
When one searches for “with ending included” in Korean on YouTube, one can find videos that claim to summarize movies or dramas, boasting titles about viral hits with millions of views, or highly recommended British dramas based on bestselling novels that even attracted significant offers from Netflix.
For instance, one of these videos is an 18-minute summary that condenses an entire movie from start to finish, while another is a 52-minute video that summarizes an entire drama series. These are the types of fast movie content that give viewers the experience of watching a whole film or series in a much shorter time.
Despite being uploaded less than a year ago, these videos have amassed 1.38 million and 920,000 views, respectively. All of these high-view videos are illegal and infringe on copyrights. However, the revenue generated from these videos is split between the creators and YouTube.
The damage caused by illegal content extends beyond just the creators and platforms profiting from it. It is also devastating for the broader industry, including video distributors and media companies that invest significant time and money in content production and distribution.
A representative from a film distribution company remarked, “Nowadays, most movies struggle to break even, and seeing summary videos of our films uploaded on these platforms is heartbreaking. The reality is that projects costing over 10 billion won are being used as a money-making tool for illegal content creators and platforms.”
