Hitler on Fair Use: "Don't tell me it helps sales. We might as well all become communists like Stallman!"

May 2, 2010 12:27 PM

A great post on Hitler Downfall parodies was on the blue only weeks ago. Since then, one notable parody was recently caught in the cross-hairs of the DMCA "shotgun", in which the famous scene is used to deride takedowns themselves. What could be more meta?

This film's maker is Brad Templeton, an EFF board member, uses the conflict opportunistically to educate people about how many takedowns occur.
From his blog:

Not to spoil things too much, but the video also makes reference to an alternate way you can get something pulled off YouTube. Studios are able to submit audio and video clips to YouTube which are “fingerprinted.” YouTube then checks all uploaded videos to see if they match the audio or video of some allegedly copyrighted work. When they match, YouTube removes the video. That’s what I have Hitler decide to do instead of more DMCA takedowns, and lo, Constantin actually ordered this, and most, though not all of the Downfall parodies are now gone from YouTube. Including mine.

We thus see the problem with both the DMCA takedown process and YouTube’s “Content ID” fingerprinting process. It’s a shotgun rather than a scalpel, and censors protected speech in the name of protecting copyrights. YouTube is a private company (and, in the interests of disclosure I have a friendly and business relationship with Google, something I am much prouder of now that they are not censoring in China) and so it has the right to decide what videos will appear on their site for whatever reasons they choose. However, there are still good and bad ways to do this.

posted by tybeet (4 comments total)

Is this a self-link or something? Because given how tired this gag is and how utterly unremarkable this particular example is, I can't figure out why else you'd post it.
posted by Mayor Curley at 12:35 PM on May 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

was on the blue only weeks ago.

And the thread is still open.

HINT, HINT.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:40 PM on May 2, 2010

I thought it was well done.
posted by amethysts at 12:44 PM on May 2, 2010

Yeah it is pretty well done.

We might as well all become Communists - like Stallman
posted by I_pity_the_fool at 12:53 PM on May 2, 2010 [1 favorite]