03 May 2010, Posted by John Merizalde in Articles, 1 Comments

Hitler Gets Banned

One of the latest viral jokes flooding the internet these days is the “Hitler finds out…” meme, a parody of the German film, Der Untergang (The Downfall).

Due to copyright infringement claims, Constantin Films, the studio responsible for the 2004 German film Downfall has asked YouTube to take down videos featuring the meme.

The parody uses a scene from the film in which Hitler is informed he will not win the war, but parodists have re-subtitled it to show the Nazi leader flying into a rage over almost anything, ranging from the iPad to qualms over grammar.

The Munich office of Constantin Films received thousands of calls and emails after YouTube started to remove the parodies of Downfall, following their order. The videos arguably fall under the category of Fair Use, since they are a parody and do not generate profit.

“Sometimes we have been asked to take certain ones down — by companies whose products have been ridiculed or from Jewish associations who were offended by certain neo-Nazi parodies using Downfall footage,” said Martin Moszkowicz, head of Constantin Film, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “But we don’t want to be the judge of what’s good or bad taste. We just see this as a simple case of unauthorized use of our copyright-protected material.”

Moszkowicz said his company has asked individuals to cease from uploading any parodies of the scene ever since the meme first appeared years ago. However, this has had little effect, and the parodies have since arisen fast into an online viral craze.

YouTube has a content identification protocol, Content ID, which searches the web for specific video data automatically. Thus, new parodies are blocked almost immediately. But, there are still plenty of them outside of YouTube and available on the web, though they are increasingly difficult to find.

Many argue that these parodies of Hitler could be considered free advertising for Downfall. The studio should allow the parodies and accept all the publicity it can get, as it will undoubtedly drive more people to see the original film.

Moszkowicz disagrees. ”We haven’t seen any impact — positive or negative — on DVD sales for Downfall. It is a very successful film, and it remains so. And I don’t know of any study that has shown that a popular movie meme has had a positive effect on sales… It has been very good business for Google and YouTube, but we haven’t seen any change,” he said.

Constantin Films spokeswoman, Valeria Kurz, who has received numerous calls and emails over the banning of the meme, said the company will not change its decision.