LeBron James Takes Legal Action Over AI Videos Of Him Pregnant
LeBron James Takes Legal Action Against Deepfakes Of Him Being Pregnant
Source: MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images / Getty
Fighting misinformation has been an ongoing battle for years and has begun to hilariously overtake the NBA players, thanks to NBA Centel.
But now with the random advancements of AI, you can do more than tweet out a made-up statement about an athlete, you can dream up a video about it— and that’s where LeBron James draws the line. Legally, at least.
According to 404 Media, James’ team of lawyers has sent out cease-and-desist letters to Flick Up, the company behind an AI tool and Discord community that allowed people to create random AI-generated videos of NBA stars.
Of course, given too much freedom, some NBA fans took it too far with deepfake content that featured James and even Steph Curry in unusual predicaments involving Diddy.
“These included videos where an AI-generated James stood by as an AI-generated Diddy sexually assaulted Steph Curry in prison, videos of James imagined as a homeless person, videos of James on his knees with his tongue out, and videos of James pregnant,” writes 404 Media.
Then a change came to the platform in June when the Discord community’s moderators stopped using realistic people as models because they wanted to avoid any further complications with a “highly valued basketball player.”
Now, weeks later, Flick Up Founder Jason Stacks confirmed with 404 Media that the player was indeed LeBron James, and on his behalf, law firm Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks sent him a request to quit it.
“The letter came from Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks on behalf of LeBron James, and we took it seriously,” Stacks said. “We removed the models immediately and have since updated our approach to likeness and public figure policies. That’s really the full story on our end.”
In a video posted to Instagram, Stacks revealed the moment he received the letter, admitting he was “so f-cked.”
He continued, explaining that he didn’t know the video would become so popular and that posting it on YouTube led to it gaining more attention than he ever imagined.
“Two months ago, I launched the YouTube of AI video. It was a fun idea to help creators make some more money,” he said in the video. “But then people started noticing. Like, really noticing. Like this guy, yeah, the LeBron James. And he wasn’t happy, because I got this cease and desist from his team.”
Well, apparently, James isn’t with the jokes, at least one of him being pregnant. See reactions to the league move below.
