Stop Using YouTube for Your Casting Videos
The Image Above Is Not Real
Look at the photo above. A young performer is recording a casting video. Natural posture, authentic facial expression, professional setting. Looks like a colleague you know from the last production.
Except: this person does not exist. The image was generated by AI. And the material that makes such images possible? It comes, among other sources, from YouTube.
What Happens When You Upload a Video to YouTube
When you upload, you accept YouTube's Terms of Service. Buried in those terms is a clause most people are not aware of: you grant YouTube a worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license. This license allows YouTube to use, reproduce, and create derivative works from your content. Not just for YouTube itself, but also for the business of its affiliated companies.
YouTube's affiliated company is Google. And Google uses this to train its AI models Gemini and Veo.
Google publicly acknowledged this in June 2025: YouTube videos are used to train Gemini and Veo. There is no way to block uploaded videos from this usage. The license clause takes effect automatically upon upload.
In concrete terms, this means: your face, your voice, your movements, your song, your monologue -- all of it potentially becomes training material for an AI that then generates images and videos strikingly similar to real performers. Like the image above.
The Industry's Double Standard
What frustrates me as a founder is the double standard. The very same theatres that speak out against AI in panel discussions write in their audition postings: "Please send us a YouTube video."
This happens especially at smaller venues and regional theatres that do not use professional casting infrastructure. It is not malicious intent. It is technical incompetence paired with convenience. And the consequence is that they are guiding their own performers to produce training material for the very technology they publicly oppose.
Anyone who writes "Send us a YouTube video" is essentially saying: "Please feed Google's AI with your face so we can save ourselves the effort of a professional solution."
What You Can Do Instead
Castapp+ offers a feature that solves exactly this problem: the Smart Profile Link.
You create a personal link to your Castapp profile. You decide which sections are visible: videos only, videos and CV, or your complete profile. You activate and deactivate individual videos as needed -- depending on what is relevant for each application.
Each link can be set with an expiry date: 7 days, 30 days, or unlimited. After expiry, the material is no longer accessible.
The crucial difference: your videos stay on Castapp. They are not hosted on a platform whose business model is based on monetising your content. No AI training, no scraping, no hidden license.
Next time a theatre writes "Send us a YouTube video": send them your Smart Profile Link. They see everything they need. And your material remains yours.
To Casters and Theatres
When you post auditions: stop requiring YouTube links. You are forcing performers to hand their material over to a platform that uses it for AI training. That is not in the interest of your industry.
Professional alternatives exist. Use them.
