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What Kind of Totalitarian A–hole Would Object to ‘Downfall’ YouTube Parodies?

Posted on | April 22, 2010 | 12 Comments

If you guessed “Hitler,” you’re a winner:

Tim Cavanaugh at Reason‘s Hit & Run:

The thousand-year reich of Downfall parodies has ended in ruins. Constantin Films, the German producer of the 2004 film Der Untergang, has compelled YouTube to start taking down the popular Hitler-rants-about-funny-thing-X clips. . . .
The 4.3 million-view original, in which Hitler gets banned from Xbox Live, has been replaced by the notice: “This video contains content from Constantin Film, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.” A quick search of YouTube shows that many others have vanished. . . .
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 . . .
Not that that will matter. The issue is YouTube’s kneejerk takedowns. The site is free to do what it likes . . . 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.

YouTube: Obeying Der Fuhrer Since 2010

(Hat-tips: Instapundit and Memeorandum.)

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Category: Blogging, humor, Uncategorized, Video

Comments

12 Responses to “What Kind of Totalitarian A–hole Would Object to ‘Downfall’ YouTube Parodies?”

  1. Professor Tom
    April 22nd, 2010 @ 5:35 pm

    That’s bolshie!

  2. Professor Tom
    April 22nd, 2010 @ 12:35 pm

    That’s bolshie!

  3. Chris Mallory
    April 22nd, 2010 @ 6:17 pm

    Because all that free advertising is a bad thing.

  4. Chris Mallory
    April 22nd, 2010 @ 1:17 pm

    Because all that free advertising is a bad thing.

  5. Joe
    April 22nd, 2010 @ 6:20 pm

    That rivals the Tony Romo/Cowboys downfall. It is made of awesome!

  6. Joe
    April 22nd, 2010 @ 1:20 pm

    That rivals the Tony Romo/Cowboys downfall. It is made of awesome!

  7. Red
    April 22nd, 2010 @ 7:23 pm

    Bummer.

  8. Red
    April 22nd, 2010 @ 2:23 pm

    Bummer.

  9. Quartermaster
    April 23rd, 2010 @ 12:40 am

    It really is silly. Under DMCA the parodies are legal and Google is being very stupid on this. I’m sure a number of other sites would be glad to host the clips and get the traffic.

  10. Quartermaster
    April 22nd, 2010 @ 7:40 pm

    It really is silly. Under DMCA the parodies are legal and Google is being very stupid on this. I’m sure a number of other sites would be glad to host the clips and get the traffic.

  11. Rob Crawford
    April 23rd, 2010 @ 1:46 am

    Love the juxtaposition of Stalin and Stallman. If you don’t get the humor, don’t worry — it’s very much an inside baseball thing for open source software people.

  12. Rob Crawford
    April 22nd, 2010 @ 8:46 pm

    Love the juxtaposition of Stalin and Stallman. If you don’t get the humor, don’t worry — it’s very much an inside baseball thing for open source software people.

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