The Hitler-reacts-to-bad-news parodies that replace the English subtitles from a scene in the film Downfall are being mass yanked from Youtube. but why? Constantin films, owners of the rights to the film “Der Untergang” (“Downfall”), upon which the parody videos are based, filed the copyright claim.
Of course, the real question is: why? Why has Constantin Films chosen to suddenly claim copyright on these clips after six years — especially when the clips generate interest from parties who are otherwise unlikely to even look at the film (the film, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, was independently produced and is entirely in German). Certainly plenty of wayward YouTubers and Internet-goers have been driven to discover the source of the clips that provide them with so much entertainment. So, yes, you wonder why Constantin Films is suddenly putting the kibosh on this obvious stream of free publicity.
“Even the director of ‘Downfall,’ Oliver Hirschbiegel, thinks the parodies are funny. He told New York Magazine in January 2010: ‘Someone sends me the links every time there’s a new one. I think I’ve seen about 145 of them! Of course, I have to put the sound down when I watch. Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I’m laughing about the scene that I staged myself! You couldn’t get a better compliment as a director.’
So dude… wtf? Furthermore: the clips on youtube are not copyright violators…
The legal merits of Constantin’s argument are clear: They do not exist. Downfall parodies take less than four minutes of a 156-minute film, and use them in a way that is unquestionably transformative. Maybe Moturk49 was somehow making a ton of money from his or her Xbox-related parody, but it seems unlikely. In any event, the Supreme Court’s 1994 decision in the “Hairy Woman” lawsuit established that the commercial nature of a parody does not render it presumptively unfair, and that a sufficient parodic purpose offers protection against the charge of copying.
“Not that that will matter. The issue is YouTube’s kneejerk takedowns. The site is free to do what it likes; nobody will bother going to court over something so ephemeral as a Hitler joke; and though YouTube is obviously the best and most popular forum for any video, it’s not like there’s some inalienable right to run your content there. Still, the use of immediate takedowns is a blunt instrument that YouTube and its owner Google will, I hope, learn to refine in the future.”
As you may have guessed, when Hitler heard the news about all this… he was not pleased…
UPDATE: ReastonTV has more:
1. It’s fair use! The parodies, which transform a few minutes of a three-hour movie, are clearly legit under existing copyright laws. Because they clearly transform the original and have no possibility of confusing viewers, the parodies are clearly protected speech.
2. This is free promotion! As George Lucas could tell the filmmakers, fan-generated videos help keep the original source material vital and relevant. Lucas used to try to police all Star Wars knock-offs, until he realized that his audience was promoting his films more effectively than he ever could. More people have surely seen Downfall due to the popularity of the parodies.
3. Let’s keep the Internet creative! The greatest cultural development over the past 20 or so years has been technologies that allow producers and consumers to create and enjoy an ever-increasing array of creative expression in an ever-increasing array of circumstances. This development is nowhere more powerful than on the Internet, which has unleashed a whole new universe of writing, music, video, and more. Indeed, YouTube is itself one of the great conduits of cyberspace. Pulling down the Downfall parodies may be within YouTube’s rights, but it nonetheless strikes a blow to the heart of what is totally awesome about the Internet.