Bound to happen: Hitler reacts to Hitler-meme takedown.

As we gossiped yesterday, Constantin Films' is deep-sixing all "The Downfall" (Der Untergang) Hitler parodies from youtube, and the web. Naturally, a Hitler-parody showing Hitler reacting to this news was bound to happen. "Haven't they ever heard of fair use?" Hitler yells "Title 17, U.S.C., Section 107? Parody is not an infringement of copyright." The Oscar-nominated film that raked home the awards, with 15 wins, and another 13 nominations, where Bruno Gantz brought home a well deserved "best actor" at the Bavarian Film Awards was the first German film portraying Hitler, with a German speaking actor as Hitler. It is, hands down, the most impressive, depressive and realistic film about World War II that I've ever seen with stellar acting and unapologetic gut-wrenching storytelling. The new Hitler-meme video mocks with "before people started making fun of this scene there were only a few people outside of Germany who knew about Downfall!" and it goes on to claim "the movie got international attention because of youtube users hard work". I call bullshit to that and so do the 15 international awards the film won. I saw it in the theatre. Twice. And I am not German, so speak for yourself Plankhead.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), these videos are being removed because of YouTube's automated Content I.D. system, which allows copyright owners to disable any videos that contain its content--regardless of whether the videos may be legitimate because they contain other elements. Many of the parodies are still up, as YouTube's Content I.D. system is not perfect--but it's probably only a matter of time before the filtering system hunts them down and removes them.

So, it's the ghost in the machine that's eating up the Hitler Parodies, and honestly, once you've seen ten you've seen them all so I for one am rather glad to no have to see another one. Kill this meme. Watch the real movie.