Hitler's pissed off about fair use

Hitler's back and he's pissed to discover that parodies of the bunker scene from Downfall have been removed without regard to the fair use provisions of US copyright law.

Hitler reacts to the Hitler parodies being removed from YouTube (Thanks, Nathan and everyone else who suggested this!)

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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thebonobo

try this, Floyd/Downfall fans…

let the Dark Side of the Chiptune play for ten seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euLdKW_Db1k

then start playing this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBO5dh9qrIQ
Paulwh80

Bruno Ganz is one of the world’s best actors…
jphilby

I laughed until I cried!

Instant classic!
Thac0

WoooooooooooooooT! It had to be made… now lets see how long it is until it gets taken down.
Pantograph

Oh boy. This one was actually funny! Good job.
Bankara

Aaaaaaaaannd, irony of ironies, it has already been yanked from youtube
Anonymous

At first I thought it was a bit dry, particularly the middle, but the end nailed it for me. Excellent!
RyanMcFitz

“…he’ll get the irony soon…” almost had me spit-take my coffee all over my keyboard.
- Enochrewt
  
  Oh yeah, the irony line was funny as hell, as was the “I thought we were free to make fun of Hitler on the internet. I thought the “I fucking hate cats” line at the end was the trumper though.
  - teapot
    
    As if “I thought we could have nice things on the internet” is not the best line, evah!
thewinchester

Streisand effect anyone?

Anyway, off to watch a cat video now.
escowles

Unfortunately, the copyright exception for commentary and satire wouldn’t protect these. When you use a work to satirize it, it’s protected. When you use a work to satirize something else, it’s not (see Dr. Seuss Enterprises v. Penguin Books, about a satire of O.J. Simpson whose use of The Cat in the Hat was ruled infringing). So this video and the meta one where Hitler wanted to make his own Downfall video would be the only ones that would probably pass muster.

Now, they would probably pass a regular fair use test. They are noncommercial, use only a small portion, and there really isn’t a market for them. So that would go a long way to making a case for fair use.
- The Chemist
  
  You sir, are absolutely right. Unfortunately, the law strikes me as absolutely wrong in that respect.
Sarah Neptune

Just watched this and laughed so hard that I had to pause it to wipe the tears from my eyes, and needed a shot of the asthma inhaler when it was over. Especially great line about “the irony”. I’m sure 300 of my closest neighbors heard me dying of laughter.
(Saw the non-parody real movie in the theater and wanted to die of non-laughter afterwards, goes w/o saying.)
Anonymous

Ok of all of them that was the funniest and best use of the clip. Oh and I had the corporate bullies go after me once due to my art and parodies of WB. Told them f#$k off and they never bothered me again.
Anonymous

That was brilliant, he’s right I only hired out the film after I saw all the parodies on youtube.
Van Diemen

Ha ha ‘I thought that we could have nice things on the internet’.
orn310

…Hmm, this takedown notice thing is getting a tad bit ridiculous… Maybe… Just maybe…we could start up a donation drive to get these videos back onto youtube, one way or another…
- FredicvsMaximvs
  
  I think there’s already one going. It’s called the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Cory may have mentioned it once or twice. ;-D
Anonymous

Godwins law, dude.
agerblic

Not to worry, it’s on Vimeo!

http://vimeo.com/11096415
- MichaelRN
  
  (aide): My FÃ¼hrer, we can probably reupload it to Vimeo or DailyMotion…
  
  (Hitler) Nobody uses Vimeo and DailyMotion! YouTube is the de facto standard!
  
  Internet gold.
Anonymous

Many other Downfall videos were only sort-of-kind-of parody and sort-of-kind-of funny. This video IS parody at its finest and was %^&$ great!
pencilbox

So great.

Also, @escowles, thanks. I didn’t know that- it definitely puts copyright law into clearer context for me.
humanresource

Wow. I never, ever, thought I’d say this, but Hitler was spot on. Screw those Nazis.
Anonymous

It was funny, but after video I felt really sad about it :|.
thebelgianpanda

Unfortunately according to this ArsTechnica it has nothing to do with Fair Use. YouTube gives some companies the ability to pull down arbitrary content without a DMCA notice, so it’s really just Google allowing third parties to censor their content.

Illegal? Unlikely, I’m sure their EULA covers this.
Unethical? Not really, Youtube get’s to decide it’s own rules.
Dick Move? Absolutely.
ciacontra

I like this one, where it’s Hitler sending out the takedowns, better: http://vimeo.com/11086952
- funkadelic73
  
  Too bad no one will ever see this (it’s on vimeo).
thehappyengineer

It’s true: Hitler hated cats.
Dv Revolutionary

#4 escowles is legally right.

These videos don’t make fun of the movie downfall, they use the framework of downfall to make fun of something else. Legally they don’t get fair use protection.

That said, should we have a world without downfall videos? Of course not. Beyond being a fun distraction they bring the high down and serve a useful purpose of undermining authoritarian traits that have grown too far in our culture. They are awesome.
Anonymous

I just wrote a paper about Youtube and I mention the Hitler videos; luckily these takedowns occurred after I submitted the paper a few weeks ago, I would have been screwed for examples otherwise.
BastardNamban

This is f**king hilarious!

You know what a real bad day for the USA is? It’s when we have to use something like this, using Nazis and Hitler themselves, to explain the abuse of fair use and copyright law. It is, as it were, only true when the enemy is screaming in our face how wrong it is amongst themselves.

Poignant on many levels, this is. Now only if the enormous assholes in Congress and the media industry, along with the BIGGEST ASSHOLE OF THEM ALL- Rupert Murdoch, would fucking listen, and stop harassing people’s freedom of speech away.

That’s all this is- like it or not, they are abusing copyright law openly to shut up individuals and their freedom of speech.

It’s pretty bad when we have to use Nazis themselves to speak to the Nazis- Murdoch, I’m fucking looking at you!
Rev. Benjamin

Ahahaahahaahha, yes!!!!!!
ViolettVerq

The “fair use” point wouldn’t have worked here anyway, I think.

We don’t have “fair use” here in Germany. And as far as I know the Constantin Film AG is German and the product as well. So they don’t have to care about the possibilities of the US copyright, no?

And it rather looks like a Youtube problem and not a copyright problem. Youtube seems to grant some special rights to copyright holders.
- arkizzle / Moderator
  
  ViolettVerq,
  
  German copyright has no influence on US servers. The law is applied where the usage takes place, not based on the origin of the media.
  _______
  
  Also: Woot! This is one of the best ones!
- matt4077
  
  There is a a fair-use like exception in german (and probably every sane) copyright law for citing: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schranken_des_Urheberrechts#Zitate.2C_.C2.A7_51_UrhG
  
  There are more exceptions for private/non-commercial use.
zorca

i laughed out loud at least three times.

and then i cried. thanks.
Sork

This one is great.
“Constantin Films Pulls Hitler”
Anonymous

It has been removed!!!
adamrice

I imagine some people with access to a good costuming department doing a shot-for-shot remake of this scene and putting it up online so that the subtitles can be remapped onto that.
XerxesQados

Thanks for the shout-out, Cory. I’m glad I could get as many people as possible to see this.
deltaverde

I wonder if they’ve bothered to look at the sales and rental numbers for Downfall since it’s become such a popular meme. Do they not realize how valuable this exposure is for the movie? What idiots.
absimiliard

Holy Shit! I just about fell out of my chair laughing at the “He’ll get the irony soon” line. I also probably made my cow-orkers wonder when I hit the “I hate cats” line.

I’m not normally a fan of the Downfall meme, but this one is timely and actually made me laugh. I give it two thumbs up.

-abs doesn’t hate cats, or cat videos (in fact he thinks that Maru is the bomb), but that line just slew him
Anonymous

I suppose the takedown was a good thing as it brought us this, the best downfall parody yet.
Bryce

IDEA: If you’re REALLY upset, remake the scene as parody then post it under Creative Commons, allowing people to derive off of it.