Beastie Boys’ ‘Sabotage’ video recreated with AI in FBI director’s fraud takedown clip -…
The FBI director posted a promotional video using AI to recreate scenes from the Beastie Boys' 'Sabotage' video, sparking debate over copyright and AI's role in government communications.
- Incident date
- May 2026
- Target
- Beastie Boys
In May 2026, a promotional video posted by the FBI director sparked controversy by using AI to recreate scenes from the Beastie Boys’ 1994 music video “Sabotage.” The video, intended to promote a fraud takedown, has ignited debate over copyright concerns and the growing role of AI in government communications.
What happened
NPR's analysis revealed that at least six clips in the FBI video appeared to be frame-by-frame recreations using artificial intelligence. These recreations exhibited telltale flaws, such as missing grilles on a car, shrunken arms, telephone wires passing through heads, and corrupted license plates. Experts confirmed that the similarities between the original video and the FBI's version were hard to explain without the use of AI, likely created by feeding screenshots from the original video into an image-to-video AI model.