AI Account Rips Off Award-Winning 2008 Short ‘El Empleo’ To Promote $49-A-Month ‘Filmmaking’ Classes (EXCLUSIVE)

Over the weekend, a relatively obscure Instagram account went viral with an AI-generated knockoff of El Empleo, the acclaimed 2008 Argentine animated short that has accumulated millions of views and several top international festival awards over nearly two decades.

The account, Nightframe, has since removed the unauthorized remake after co-creator Patricio Plaza, who directed the short alongside Santiago Bou Grasso, objected to his work being repurposed to promote a paid AI filmmaking service.

The 30-second knockoff reportedly attracted more than five million views in under 24 hours, despite Nightframe having only around 16,000 followers. Neither of the film’s original directors was consulted before its creation or release.

From Plagiarized Short To Paid Subscriptions

The unauthorized remake was obviously problematic, but the commercial connection only became apparent after a closer examination of the Instagram post.

Its caption instructed viewers to “Send AI to find out how I made this film.” Following those instructions triggered an automated private message directing viewers to AI Film School, a service advertising AI filmmaking instruction for $49 per month.

“So these people were not only infringing the film’s copyright, but also using it to make their AI business go viral and generate revenue,” Plaza told us. “I can’t even begin to list all the things that are wrong with this.”

When we reached out, the person behind Nightframe denied profiting from the video or having any financial relationship with AI Film School.

“I’m a student running my Instagram page as a hobby, experimenting with AI filmmaking,” they told us. “I created a 30-second AI interpretation of the original six-minute animation purely for fun, with no intention of exploiting the creator’s work.”

The account operator said the original film had been credited and denied receiving any money from the video or the account.

“I occasionally share AI Film School’s content but have never received any compensation for doing so,” the operator said, adding that the video was removed after Plaza contacted them.

The account did not offer an explanation for why a video supposedly created purely for fun included a prompt that would lead users to an automated promotion for a paid AI filmmaking service.

There’s a bitter irony in the choice of source material for the AI knockoff. El Empleo depicts a world in which human beings are reduced to tools, their labor and bodies exploited for the benefit of others. Nearly two decades later, the film itself has been repurposed without permission to promote technology that promises to automate creative labor, turning years of painstaking artistic work, two years of hand-drawn work on paper in the case of El Empleo, into an advertisement for AI-generated content.