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EFF Assails YouTube For Removing "Downfall" Parodies
Locke2005 writes "In what promises to be one of the quickest threads to become Godwin'ed, YouTube has pulled scores of parodies of the 'Hitler Finds Out' scene from the movie The Downfall. Ironically, I had never heard of this movie before this — and now I want to watch it." Here is the EFF complaint. David Weinberger has posted some details on Google's Content Identification tool, which is being used in the shotgun takedowns.
und ich bin erste!
(first post, thread is now godwinned)
I love those things. The Gencon Battletech one was the first one I ever saw.
Unfortunately, since "fair use" doesn't have a definition that allows a reasonable person to determine objectively "that is fair use" or "that isn't fair use" it means each instance is handled on a case by case basis and pretty much needs a judge to determine what is and is not fair use. Of course, the normal view is that "parody" is fair use. However, in a case like this - is the movie truly being parodied? It sucks that we don't have a solid litmus test for fair use that doesn't require litigation.
Wait till Hitler finds out about this!!! woooooohhh boy!!
A good summary of the whole story of the meme before the YouTube action.
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...but difficult to watch if you're squeamish about real-world evil.
The parodies that I've seen, though (of the approximately 700,000 of them on YouTube) are hit and miss, though I'm pretty sure this is exactly the kind of thing that's defensible as fair use.
This is rather stupid, considering the director of Downfall watches them and likes them. In fact, in his own words "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." http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/01/the_director_of_downfall_on_al.html
- Aetheral Research -
Some of these parodies should be in the Smithsonian.
Constantin Films, just like any other company run by idiots, certainly enjoys the free hosting of their movie trailers and whatever else they have to promote their stupid movies.
the impoverishment of our culture
no story, no art, is ever original. it all borrows or reinvents or reinterprets something that came before. and if the thread of our cultural output is artificially taxed strained and stamped out for demands for cash, then all of us, all of our lives, are less rich for that
maybe content creators would understand that parodies like this downfall clip actually create interest in the original, and are really just a form of advertisement. instead, imagine all the culturally relevant art that we will never see and can never see the light of day because a greedy selfish system would rather lock art behind lock and key, where it earns no cash, rather than let it get out there and bloom, and create more art, and create more COMMERCE
art, music, movies, all creative output has the unique property of being richer when it is allowed to flow freely and freely intermingle. why do we have to lead less rich cultural lives only because some fucking trolls in the bank vault can't see that? that if there were no such thing as intellectual property, the ancillary streams they could tap in the free flow of cultural output would be richer sources of cash than their feeble and failed approaches to control what they cannot and will never be able to control?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I wouldn't worry about this. Youtube very happily takes down whatever, but just go back in a few weeks and it's up again. Just off the top of my head, here's a clip about Ron Paul that Fox had taken down, there are a multitude of Simpson's clips up there now and for a long time when youtube first started those were all being taken down, and IIRC at one point musicians or the RIAA were forcing people to take down homemade music videos that people had posted. Eventually whoever is issuing the notices will get tired and give up. Sure you can try to do this, but it's a lot like trying to keep the tide from washing your sand castle away, it's a hopeless battle.
By the way, I saw this movie in the theater for a foreign film festival. It made it all the more funny to see the viral videos start popping up since I remembered the scene vividly and it's a pretty powerful movie. Although, I saw it with a German girl and her comment was that Hitler movies were passe in germany since so many had been made. I thought it was good though.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Identifacition?
Really?
What? That's a perfectly cromulent word that embiggens us all.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
This is rather stupid, considering the director of Downfall watches them and likes them. In fact, in his own words "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." http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/01/the_director_of_downfall_on_al.html
Well... The article also ends with the director saying "If only I got royalties for it, then I'd be even happier." But removing the videos from youtube wouldn't help him with getting royalties, so yeah. It is rather stupid. He'll probably get less money now since the videos were essentially free advertising for the movie.
To continue with my point (I hit submit instead of preview) - I bet the reason the director can't get any royalties is because his contract with the studio doesn't mention youtube clips so the studio gets to keep any money generated all for themselves. That's the kind of bullshit that "hollywood accounting" is famous for.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
First they came for the Youtube videos, but I didn't speak up because I don't have any Youtube videos...
Sure, hardly anyone posting a youtube vid will be interested in licensing the scene. It's short sighted to consider only that aspect, and think of it as lost revenue. This meme is a big one. If properly nurtured, it could ensure future rental revenue in the way that only cult movie status can.
I also only --and legally-- rented the movie after watching the Xbox Live parody. The movie was a large international success upon its release, but it didn't make my radar. The parodies are can be so funny because the banality of the fake subtitles is so incongruent to the remarkably powerful acting.
My thought process went from "this is hilarious" to "wow what a great scene... I need to watch this movie".
I received a "Notice of potential infringement" from YouTube very soon after posting this one a week ago. The video, which had initially been accessible, was pulled from the site.
There was an option to appeal the takedown notice, and I filled it out, providing as a reason "Parody is a recognized fair use under US copyright law." I'm actually not sure if you can play the fair-use card when using the content owner's IP to mock an unrelated subject, but in any event, the appeal seemed to be accepted by YouTube, because access to the video was restored within a few hours.
So, for what it's worth, if your video gets pulled by Youtube, try filling out the appeal form.
...next up, the creators of Zero Wing request YouTube take down the All Your Base videos.
To anybody that hasn't seen this movie, it is a great artistic portrayal of Der Fuhrer in his final days, and provides insightful dialog regarding the mentality of the Reich's higher ups during the final days. It is an extremely dark and gritty movie, but the angle it presents is something alot of American history books and entertainment tend to neglect.
I saw the original movie, Der Untergang, which is its original German name, in my German Studies class in high-school, and recommend it to anybody interested in more than just Godwin's Law. Watch it. Must See.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
I'm pretty sure the production qualities of the original are not a factor in determining fair use. There's amount and substantiality of the part of the work used (which is based on the whole movie, not the clip), effect on market for original work (zip or net positive), purpose of use, and nature of the work. Parody is an especially strong fair use; things have been found to be fair use when they used substantially all of the work allegedly infringed. The example video had all four factors in its favor.
It woulod be more like you taking 10 minutes of Avatar and changing the subtitles in a somewhat cleverer way than that. You should do it; Avatar cries out for it in spots. If I were doing it I'd concentrate on the idea that the Na'vi were somehow totally superior because they were all hooked into the ecosystem, yet it's the humans were the ones who could travel in space, grow new bodies, and teleoperate them. Or, I might patch in the Aldebarran scene from Star Wars and suggest that's what would have happened shortly after the movie ended.
The EFF has a parody video up about this type of thing happening. It seems to have been posted before Youtube started pulling them down, so it's almost prophetic.
The clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzUoWkbNLe8&feature=player_embedded
Well really it's stupid regardless of what the director has to say. I could imagine the director taking it all very seriously and being upset that people were making fun of his movie or making light of Hitler's actions. Still, forcing these clips to be taken down would be stupid.
These parodies aren't being done for profit. They're not competing with the movie. They're not taking away from the movie. Nobody is going to watch these clips and say, "Well I don't need to see this movie now." This isn't what copyright was created for.
The whole thing might even be covered under the first amendment as parody.
Send them an email and let them know how you feel about the takedown! zentrale@constantin-film.de
Why not move to X-plane or flightgear?
Seems like a better solution for players and the developers that want to make addons for them.
Many many reasons
- They are STILL not as sophisticated or feature complete. Some of it is extreme. Joystick support is still not as easy as it should be in Flightgear.
- Momentum - not nearly as many addons now means its harder to get the ball rolling
- Both simulators keep changing even in minor releases. Makes it difficult for part time content creators to keep up, and less worthwhile when you know a new version will break it. Well FSX isn't fantastic for backward compatiblity - one of many mistakes, but FS2004 runs most FS2002 planes, and often only minor changes are needed to get an FS2004 plane to work in FSX
- Small changes and tweaks are very easy in FS2004 compared to X-Plane or Flight Gear. Everything but the physical model - from effects to air traffic, even scenery is somewhat easier in FS2004. Repainting is relatively easy too.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Then they came for the ISP's, but I did not speak up because
Hitler's relatives sue Constantin films for copyright infringement of his private conversations while in the bunker.
The legal definition of "parody" is:
A form of speech protected by the First Amendment as a "distorted imitation" of an original work for the purpose of commenting on it.
The key words (from both our definitions) are "imitated" and "imitation". The work in question is not an imitation. It is an exact copy with some minor modifications. I should also point out that the work in question was not providing any type of commentary on the original.
Now, there may indeed be some fair use protection provided by the four factors outlined in the law, but nevertheless, this was a bad example that they themselves created. More convincing would have been a true, original parody that was taken down by Google's system.
Because a parody video of Hitler as Steve Jobs discovering the loss of the iPhone 4G prototype just must be made.
This ain't rocket surgery.
In fact, after clicking through related videos, I can't find any that have the "this video is no longer available" (or whatever the wording is) on any Downfall parody.
That's why I do speak up when they come for the fascists.
Here is a perfect example of why people hate Microsoft's market monopolies. They acquired a flight simulator company and slaughtered all of the competition with the product by being excellent in the field. For 25 years they made fantastic profits on it, raising an almost impassible barrier to entry for new companies. A thriving ecosystem for third party hardware and software products emerged, from contollers to cockpit simulators to full-blown moving rooms costing tens of thousands of dollars.
And one day, being the last one standing in the field - having created a product that is a fine evolution of consumer flight simulation, they give it up. Not because the product's not making money - it is. Not because there's no market for it - there is. But simply because there's noone left on the field to kill, so they're bored with it.
This should tell you something about the lifecycle of their products. There's not just a bottom end where they kill them off to cut their losses. There's also a top end where they kill them off for excessive success. We saw this with IE too, and a team was reconstituted there only because they were losing market share and control of the user experience of the Internet, which worked against their vertical goal of control of average user experience from server to desktop.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Imagine if you will that Wm. Shakespeare had to contend with modern copyright law. He's only one example - any remembered artist will do. How much of the works of "Bard of Avon" would be permitted under current law? Actually, almost none of it. A sonnet or two. And because his unsourced output was so small we would not know of him at all. England's national poet would have been silenced by copyright law as we know it. Almost all of the stories he retold as plays would now be lost forever because they were derived from bardic tales or previous plays that would have been protected by copyright. We grant him great respect now not because he invented these stories, but because he told them well .
Every play, each story, was derived or influenced - as was common in that day and should be common still - by the bardic tales passed down in oral tradition that today would be protected. It was in his wry telling of these tales, the wit that he added, that made them so durable that we know them still. If he had not retold them in his special way they would be lost to time. Today he would be Disney'd out of his art - as a great many grand geniuses are today being silenced by the tyranny of copyright monopolies.
Every creative person needs to understand and acknowledge the source of their creation, or at least that they've built upon one. And they need to submit to a future where others build upon their work. We call this evolution culture. Modern copyright law admits no such culture. Each of them needs to understand that modern copyright law dooms them to ignominy, as our current masters of culture need new sales to drive their market numbers and this works against literary immortality. It's a Devil's bargain.
And so, breeding a generation devoid of culture we reap what we sow. If kids can't adopt the culture of their parents because they're proscribed from experiencing what it was by copyright law, they will invent their own. These inventions will by necessity be primal. Primitive. Animalistic. That can be art, but it can't be durable art.
So, artists and inventors are actually harmed by the current state of law. They should oppose it as it prevents their art from going viral and being a part of our culture.
By preventing the natural course of social evolution through copyright law, we naturally regress to the primitive at an abhorrent rate. That's not the purpose of copyright enshrined in the US Constitution. The purpose of that clause was to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts."
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Then how come he still loses?
FRA: STFU GTFO
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/19/201255
See plenty of their clips (legally & for free) here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/montypython?blend=1&ob=4
Since the director of the film apparently *likes* the parodies, why not organise a competition, with a YouTube channel for the winners?
Yipee, instant good karma for the movie industry, (for a change), instead of this Streisand effect boomerang.
All the parody clips will be back, or posted elsewhere, within minutes anyway....
The clip used is less than 4% of the total film. Well within fair use. Putting a joke subtitle under a similarly short IronMan clip is fair use as well.
Do you Gentoo!?
In reality, the bunker scene depicts Hitler reacting furiously to the news that the war is lost as Soviet troops close in on Berlin. The internet parody leaves the video and audio intact, but replaces the subtitles with Hitler reacting to ridiculous every day events, like having his xBox live account canceled, or finding out that Michael Jackson died.
I don't see how this qualifies as parody when the only thing changed is the subtitle text. The clips are humorous when done well, and an argument might be made for fair use, but this is not parody. Parody requires imitation, whereas this is closer to annotation.
Your brain is not a computer.