Wednesday, April 21, 2010

YouTube Removes Hitler Parodies. Death of a Web Meme?

By Sarah Jacobsson

(PC World) YouTube has recently begun removing videos that feature content from Constantin Films' 2004 film, Der Untergang ("Downfall"), despite the fact that many of these videos are parodies and thus constitute fair use of the material....

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."

Some of Hirschbiegel's favorite parodies include the one where Hitler hears of Michael Jackson's death, and the one in which Hitler can't get Billy Elliot tickets--both of which have been blocked by Constantin's copyright claims. Hirschbiegel thinks the parodies are a good thing, too--"The point of the film was to kick these terrible people off the throne that made them demons, making them real and their actions into reality," he told New York Mag, "I think it's only fair if now it's taken as part of our history, and used for whatever purposes people like..."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

They are funny--sheesh!