Brad Ideas - Hitler tries a DMCA takedown - Comments

Unedited clip

Craig — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:48:41 -0800

Does anyone know if this clip is available somewhere without any subtitles? I'd like to download my own copy and create my own parody. I'm trying to do this for a presentation for a work friend who is leaving suddenly and so I don't have time to order the movie and get it here on time for that.

Any pointers would be appreciated.
Thanks.
C.

Downfall parody

djarm67 — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 04:54:02 -0700

lol. Love your version.

I had done one of these myself after a series of flagging, votebotting and DMCAs on mnay of the YouTube pro-science channels. (Of note: mine was up a week before yours)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QDC1KNavbE

Enjoy

Don't eat all my bandwidth

brad — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:54:32 -0700

But a version can be found at http://www.templetons.com/files/hitler-takedown.avi

Please offer free format, downloadable version

Kris Bergstrom — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:47:02 -0700

I absolutely LOVE this video. Great work, Brad! I'd like to point others to it, but all my friends know how I lament youtube's requirement of non-free (as in freedom) Flash. If possible, I'd love to point people to a downloadable/free-format version of the movie. Is one available anywhere?

I would like to have a

Blake Gripling — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:57:36 -0700

I would like to have a server for my new video site, please. Youtube has gone into disarray ever since those corporate blood clots took over.

In fact, the YT staff themselves are worse than Hitler and his ill ideologies. Corporate greed and too much lobbying against comedians who only want a quick laugh or two are the reasons why America is into a sticky situation. We're just here to cheer ourselves up just as Shirley Temple entertained families 70 years ago, not piss each other off with a truckload of lawsuits!

Downfall

Pete Ashdown — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:16:07 -0700

It is a great movie, and it was the parodies that pushed me to finally see it.

There must be something wrong!

geekzapoppin — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 06:10:07 -0700

I'm a little behind the times so this is the first time I've seen a parody using that clip. After watching it, I was compelled to actually seek out DOWNFALL. Surely, this can't be! Unauthorized clips do nothing but *hurt* films!

Does. Not. Compute....

Does. Not. Commnahhaeofhrrrrrrrrrr

Daiiiiissyyyy Daiiiiissssyyyy giivvve meee yourrrrr annnssswweeerrrr doooooooooo......

;)

Nice work, Brad. I can't wait to actually see the real film, now!

DMClol

harce — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:17:08 -0700

http://img40.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dafumca.png

the second video included into the article just got DMCA'd out of youtube... LOL

seems youtomb got it: http://youtomb.mit.edu/search?q=Constantin+Film+Produktion+GmbH

App and video unconnected

brad — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:32:56 -0700

The whole point is that the App (which was written by a 3rd party company) and the video (which happened to be linked to in the feed the day they tried the App) are entirely unconnected. The App is just an RSS reader pre-programmed to display EFF news from the EFF rss feed. It had this video in it. If you don’t like the video or other Downfall vids, you don’t need to watch this one. If you have followed copyright battles, then you may want to, as it’s aimed at you.

Apple should have denied

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:47:58 -0700

Apple should have denied your app, simply from poor taste and unoriginality of doing another downfall parody. Do we really need 10 million of these? If you enjoyed working on it, fine, keep it to yourself.

I was simply reporting

brad — Sat, 30 May 2009 12:58:26 -0700

Why the movie was controversial. Many people do not like seeing Hitler or Goebbels or the others with any humanity. We don’t like thinking that a human being could have done what they did. For those who were victims of Hitler, they don’t like seeing the destroyer as human either. But he obviously was. In fact, he obviously was quite charming and charismatic, at least at the start, and this doesn’t show in the movie at all.

very nice article, but...

some german guy — Sat, 30 May 2009 05:00:02 -0700

Hey!

Very nice article, very very nice idea and I love the video!

Now, at the end of your post there is something that disturbs me:
I have to dissaprove the whole "The Movie" Paragraph about hitler not being a heartless demon without soul (and surely with horns on his forehead).

Sure Hitler was a very bad guy and so on but the common believe that such persons can't have good sides (like care for his dog and wife and so on) is just nonsense.
I don't want to sympathise with his ideas, methods or cruelty but there is also the other side:
"“Those are the good guys dropping the bombs, the people dying are the worst guys”"
Sure very much people in his regime were bad guys or at least shown her "dark side".
But also there were so much people in this "führerbunker" (and the city, the whole land) that simply were there, were good people who died. How can you say that these people were "the worst guys" (for example the secretary protagonist).
As you are, I suppose, a person with common sense and the ability do differencieate not only good from evil but the grey shades of illegal action (as you do by trying to keep the DMCA at bay) I thought that you may have a "better" view on this whole scenario.

In your defense this article was nothing about what I wrote here and maybe you just didn't have the time or whatever to discuss this matter, but I wanted to write this off my soul.

Communication

Jay Fienberg — Fri, 29 May 2009 10:31:45 -0700

Really well done - and great to read about how you did it, too!

I think one of the important ways to communicate about these kinds of issues is that manner that you've done: taking a copyrighted work and making a fair use parody to communicate about the right to make fair use parodies of copyrighted works.

In particular, many people (I think) fail to conceptually see the connection between "use" (free of permission) and the creation of new works -- what you did both tells a story about that concept, and makes it more visceral.

Indeed

brad — Fri, 29 May 2009 01:04:55 -0700

Thanks for the note on the fingerprinting. I can see how they would do this to stop re-uploads of what they ban. This is different from the system that generally blocks any video matching generic copyright holder provided fingerprints, I presume, but perhaps not that different.

You should have gotten a notice of your takedown — if you did, you should send a copy to our Chilling Effects project — and the right to file a counter-notice. After you filed the counter notice, YouTube should then have put the video back up. Then Constantin would have had to decide if it wants to sue you or not. It would be foolish of them to do so, but I can see how you might not want to even deal with the hassle.

My video looks good, but not nearly as good as it would be if I had just been able to rip the DVD, or better yet, the Blu-Ray. I could have gotten a high quality analog rip if I had gotten the Blu-Ray, a player, and one of the new capture cards that does 720p video from analog component video cables. They are coming down in price, but I don’t yet have one. It’s not strictly needed to make the comedic point, but it is of interest in the analog hole debate.

As a public forum

brad — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:59:39 -0700

I would take a different tack. I think the government has a responsibility to be open to all lawful inputs, and as such, it is their duty, in picking a contractor who will handle such videos and feedback, to pick one who would not censor. They should have a contract with the provider.

I meant that YouTube is free, in its own general site, to host only what it wants to host. This doesn’t mean it is inappropriate for us to criticise them if they take down videos for bad reasons — we should. It’s just that we can force them to host videos without their agreement. This is a fundamental part of freedom of the press. The law is not allowed to tell the press what not to print, nor can it tell them what they must print. This doctrine is called “compelled speech.” If a site is acting for the government of course, then it is a contractor and can be told what to do. While YouTube has market dominance there is no monopoly here.

Hitler tries a DMCA takedown

brad — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:36:51 -0700

(Amazing update: Apple computer blocked a new iPhone App which was to show the EFF Blog, because today, at least, that blog contained a pointer to this video, and the video has a dirty word. Incredible. Time to support EFF and the effort to make iPhone jailbreaking legal.)

Unless you’ve been under a rock, you have probably seen a parody clip that puts new subtitles on a scene of Hitler ranting and raving from the 2004 German movie Downfall (Der Untergang). Some of these videos have gathered millions of views, with Hitler complaining about how he’s been banned from X-box live, or nobody wants to go to Burning Man, or his new camera sucks. The phenomenon even rated a New York Times article.

It eventually spawned meta-parodies, where Hitler would rant about how many Hitler videos were out on the internet, or how they sucked. I’ve seen at least 4 of these. Remarkably, one of them, called Hitler is a Meme was pulled from YouTube by the studio, presumably using a DMCA takedown. A few others have also been pulled, though many remain intact. (More on that later.)

Of course, I had to do my own. I hope, even if you’ve seen a score of these, that this one will still give you some laughs. If you are familiar with the issues of DRM, DMCA takedowns, and copyright wars, I can assure you based on the reviews of others that you will enjoy this quite a bit. Of course, as it criticises YouTube as well as the studio, I have put it on YouTube. But somehow I don’t think they would be willing to try a takedown — not on so obvious a fair use as this one, not on the chairman of the most noted legal foundation in the field. But it’s fun to dare them.

(Shortly I may also provide the video in some higher quality locations. I do recommend you click on the “HQ” button if you have bandwidth.)