Ryan Hendry

We seriously need to talk about the growing problem of AI plagiarism on YouTube because it’s getting out of control. I’ve recently discovered an AI channel that appears to be taking nearly half my videos, running them through AI and repurposing my work as its own content. The wording is different. Some points are expanded, others removed, additional context is thrown in. But the underlying research, arguments, opinions and talking points are often the same. Even the titles and thumbnails are incredibly similar. I know my own work. I know the research I’ve done, the arguments I’ve constructed and the opinions I’ve formed. I can recognise when my content appears to have been taken, reworded and repackaged by AI. It’s not just me, I can see these accounts doing it to other big United and YouTube fan channels work in the space. And as someone who uploads videos every single day, this is particularly frustrating. I’ll spend hours researching a topic, forming my own opinions, recording and editing a video, only to wake up the following day and see the same AI channel (Maggy Talks Football) has uploaded a video covering practically all the same points, arguments and opinions I made the day before. The video might be different in many ways but I can tell when it’s my work thrown into ai and repurposed to be shorter etc. The wording might be different, the order might change and some extra information might be thrown in, but when you’ve spent hours creating that content yourself, you recognise your own work. It’s incredibly disheartening knowing that almost every day, something you’ve put genuine time and effort into creating appears to be getting fed into an AI tool and repurposed by somebody else. And I’m clearly not the only creator experiencing this. So many other creators are having their work copied and repackaged in exactly the same way. This is becoming a widespread problem. What’s particularly concerning is that these AI channels aren’t necessarily bringing anything original to the conversation. They’re taking the hard work of human creators and using AI to produce another version of essentially the same video, with an AI-generated character presenting it. Some of these videos are even getting MORE views than the original creators whose work they appear to be based on. And the audience often has absolutely no idea they’re watching AI. You’ll see hundreds of comments complimenting these AI presenters as though they’re real people. This is genuinely dangerous for the future of content creation. Not just football YouTube, but EVERY niche. Why spend hours researching, scripting, recording and editing original content when someone else can potentially feed your video into an AI tool, change the wording, add a few extra facts and upload their own version the next day? I have absolutely no problem with creators using AI to enhance their work. AI can be an incredible tool. But there’s a massive difference between using AI to help create something original and using AI to disguise the fact you’re repurposing somebody else’s work. Changing the wording doesn’t automatically make the underlying work original. I appreciate this is difficult for YouTube to police, particularly when the wording isn’t identical. But something needs to change. YouTube needs to take this seriously and take action against channels that systematically repurpose other creators’ work without adding genuine original substance. Because if this continues unchecked, what incentive is there for people to keep putting the time, effort and creativity into making original content? AI should be helping creators. Not replacing their work with recycled versions of it.