As I was browsing through articles on copyright issues, I fell upon one related to Hitler. There was a film released in 2004 titled “Downfall” focusing on the last moments of Hitler’s rule. From this film there is one specific scene where the defeated Hitler was giving a passionate speech to his remaining staff. The article describes how this scene has been included in many spoof parodies on YouTube, whether associated with topics ranging from XBox to iPad. Because of the intense melodramatic scene, many people online are amused by these parodies, gathering more than millions of views.
However, Constantin Films, the owner of the original movie, have finally gotten YouTube to remove those videos claiming it is copyright infringement. The Jewish community has also been bothered by the parodies. The opponents of the parodies state that the Holocaust should not be a comical matter. Therefore YouTube, using ContentID was able to remove a lot of the clips according to the film company’s request. There is also another option for the copyright holder to let the clips remain and give a percentage of advertising profit to the holder.
Overall, is this not a fair use case? The Youtube clips took that film scene and transformed the purpose of it to portray another message. The film company also commented that the Youtube clips do not affect their sales, therefore it is not drawing away profit (or adding to it) from the original film. Even the film’s director enjoyed these parodies, commenting how people will remember history because of these clips. Therefore, I wonder what Youtube’s view is towards this case since many of its posted videos are parodies-was this one just to satisfy the film company?
More information found here: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/21/arts/AP-US-Hitler-YouTube-Meme.html?_r=1&scp=10&sq=copyright&st=cse
