ArchiveCut / AI images or archive pictures in a history video?
AI images or archive pictures in a history video?
Use real archive pictures for real events wherever they exist, and label anything else. Viewers tend to take a picture in a history film as evidence, and an AI image can show a moment that nobody recorded.
Checked against the sources listed below on 4 November 2026. General guidance, not legal advice: terms change, so read the current page before you rely on it.
Should I use AI-generated images in a history documentary?
Use real archive pictures wherever they exist. An AI image of a real event can look like evidence of something nobody photographed, so if you do use one as a reconstruction, label it on screen.
Do I have to disclose AI images on YouTube?
YouTube requires disclosure of realistic AI content, including a realistic scene that never happened and altered footage of a real event or place.
Is there an industry standard?
The Archival Producers Alliance, a group of documentary archival producers, published best-practice guidelines on generative AI in 2024, followed by a tool kit and case studies in 2025. Its stated aim is to keep documentary and archival media credible and verifiable.
What if no real picture exists?
You have honest options: a map, a document, a place as it looks today, a related picture labelled as illustrative, or a text card. ArchiveCut labels pictures that aren’t of the exact event as illustrative.
Where ArchiveCut fits
ArchiveCut doesn’t generate imagined scenes of the past. It searches licensed archives and records each picture’s source. You can also upload your own pictures, and you decide what goes in the film.