AI-generated “brain corruption” videos have appeared throughout the internet and are attracting a lot of attention. Now attracting attention among younger users, these clips feature wild characters, including sharks in sneakers and ballerinas with cappuccinos on their heads.
One of the startups driving this trend is OpenART, founded in 2022 by two former Google employees. It promotes approximately 3 million active users each month.
The company recently launched a new “One Click Story” feature at Open Beta. This allows users to enter a single sentence, script, or song and turn it into a one-minute video with a story arc. This includes everything from Tiktok’s light-hearted stories to more serious content such as YouTube-oriented and music videos. OpenART assumes that this feature is used for advertising.
With One Click Story you will have three templates: character vlogs, music videos, or descriptors. In the case of character VLOGs, users start by uploading an image of the character and entering a prompt. If the song is uploaded, the software will understand the lyrics and create animations that match the theme of the song, such as drawing flowers blooming in the garden.
Users can edit individual clips by reconsidering the editor’s storyboard mode and tweaking the prompts for more refined results. The platform aggregates over 50 AI models and allows users to choose their preferred tools, such as Dalle-3, GPT, Imagen, Flux Kontext, and Stable Diffusion.
The goal of the new feature is to further lower the barriers to becoming an AI creator. This is a highly popular medium despite the ongoing controversy.
These tools are useful, such as quickly creating original character and story content using video generators, but there are many ethical issues to address. These include the risk of imitating the styles of other artists and creating intellectual property rights, misuse and misinformation.
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During testing, I realized that character VLOG options can step into gray legal territory, as character types such as Pikachu, Spongebob, and Super Mario can pose a risk of intellectual property (IP) infringement. In June, Disney and Universal sued AI company Midjourney over the AI-generated images.
Users should note that if they find out that the video infringes someone else’s copyright, the video may be out of social media platforms and if it is found that the user contributed to the infringement, they may be liable under copyright law.
“We are trying to be cautious about IP breaches,” co-founder and CEO Coco Mao told TechCrunch. “When you upload some IP characters, the model you use by default rejects them and you can’t create IP characters, but sometimes it slips.”
Mao added that the company is open to talking to major IP owners to obtain a license for the character.
One aspect that OpenART thinks makes it stand out is its ability to maintain consistency in the letters. Unlike the average video model that relies on simple, standalone clips where users have to put together a cohesive story, OpenART aims to ensure that both visuals and storylines are consistent.
“The problem that a lot of AI didn’t really handle was the consistency of the characters in the same video. If you don’t have the same characters, it’s hard to get into the story,” Mao Zedong said.
Looking ahead, the company plans to iterate one-click functionality by allowing users to create videos featuring conversations between two different characters. Another plan for the roadmap is mobile app development.
OpenART runs on a credit-based system. We offer four plans. This has a basic cost of $14 per month with up to four one-click stories, 40 videos, 4,000 images and four characters. The advanced plan is $30 per month for 12,000 credits and includes up to 12 one-click stories. The Infinite plan costs 24,000 credits and costs $56 per month, and there are also team plans available for $35 per month per member.
OpenART raises $5 million in funding from its core set ventures and DCM ventures, boasting positive cash flow. Additionally, the company said it is on track to have an annual return rate of over $20 million.
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