The creators of an AI tool and Discord community that allowed people to create AI videos of NBA stars says that it got a cease-and-desist letter from lawyers representing LeBron James. This marks one of the first known times that a high-profile celebrity has threatened legal action against an AI company for enabling the creation of nonconsensual AI imagery of their likeness. It is also one of the first times we’ve seen a celebrity take legal action against a type of nonconsensual but not strictly sexual type of AI-generated content, which is rampant on Instagram and other social media.
In March, I wrote about ‘Brainrot’ AI that was regularly going viral on Instagram. A lot of the most popular brainrot AI videos featured LeBron James and were created using a tool called Interlink AI, which runs on a larger AI generation platform called FlickUp. On the Interlink AI Discord channel, people were learning how to make the videos with detailed guides that in some cases explained exactly how to make videos of James. High profile creators there were racking up millions of views on Instagram making AI generated videos of James and Steph Curry. 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.
In late June, the mods of the Interlink AI Discord community told members that they decided to remove all “realistic people models” from the Interlink AI platform.
“This change comes after we ran into legal issues involving a highly valued basketball player, and to avoid any further complications, we’ve chosen to take a proactive approach and fully remove all realistic likenesses from the site,” the mods wrote on Discord. “We know this may be disappointing for some of you who were enjoying the realism in your content, but this move protects the future of the platform and allows us to focus on building something even bigger.”
404 Media confirmed with Jason Stacks, the founder of FlickUp, that this player was LeBron James: “A couple weeks ago, we received a cease and desist letter from LeBron James’ attorney about one of our creators, Interlink AI. In collaboration with Interlink, we had been promoting an AI model trained on LeBron James and a few other iconic basketball players. Within 30 minutes of receiving the cease and desist, we made the decision to remove all realistic people from Interlink AI’s software. Generative AI is the “wild west” when it comes to copyright & IP, but we’re committed to being on the right side of that change.”
Stacks would not share the cease-and-desist letter with 404 Media, but said that it came from the law firm Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks, P.C. Grubman Shire did not respond to numerous phone calls seeking more information, and a receptionist that we reached said that they could not connect us with the lawyers there. 404 Media left a message with the receptionist asking for comment but did not hear back.
“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.”
Stacks also posted an Instagram Reel about the cease-and-desist letter, in which he briefly flashes different printed out portions of it. In one frame of the video, “Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks” is visible in the top left corner of one of the pages of the cease-and-desist.
“I’m so fucked. This is a letter from one of the biggest NBA players of all time,” Stacks says in the video. “Two months ago, I launched the YouTube of AI video. It was a fun idea to help creators make some more money. 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.”
Before receiving the cease-and-desist, in a “basketball” channel on the Interlink Discord, Stacks shared an AI-generated image of James in a pool float: “LeBron looks so chill,” he wrote.
At least three Instagram accounts that had garnered millions of views on nonconsensual AI videos of James have been deleted by Instagram. When asked by 404 Media whether it had received a cease-and-desist letter from James, Meta refused to comment.
The Interlink Discord contained step-by-step instructions for how to make videos of James, and also has a “wins” channel, where users bragged about getting 50 Cent to like the James/Curry/Diddy prison sexual assault video. That specific video racked up at least 6.2 million views on Instagram. Because of the popularity of AI-generated content featuring NBA players, Interlink launched series of models based directly on basketball players, including James, Curry, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Nikola Jokić, as well as models for other celebrities like Elon Musk, Mr. Beast, Drake, and Kanye West: “These additions give you even more flexibility and creativity when building out your content, especially if you’re creating NBA-style scenes or viral storytelling concepts,” the mods said. “Let’s keep creating!”
Mods for the Discord even demonstrated some of their creations—an April “announcement” from the mods includes an AI video of a pregnant James saying “Curry come quick, my baby is being born.”
It is notable that James’s attorneys took note of Interlink and FlickUp. As we have reported for years, celebrities are some of the largest targets of nonconsensual AI-generated imagery. People who make AI content often try to get AI generators to create celebrity content even when there are guardrails, and there are currently not very many public examples of celebrities and their lawyers pushing back against the practice. A series of websites that became notorious for generating real people have recently stopped the practice after getting cut off by their payment providers.