The Downfall of Hitler's YouTube parody

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A screenshot from a Downfall parody YouTube clip.

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One of YouTube's most beloved parodies is facing extinction, with countless Adolf Hitler Downfall clips vanishing from the popular video site in recent days.

Behind the removal of the popular meme is German movie production company, Constantin Film, which has judged many of the comic clips an infringement of its copyright.

The 2004 German film Downfall, or Der Untergang, has inspired hundreds of parodies of Hilter's famous rant scene using fake subtitles. The most popular depicted the fictitious Fuhrer's reaction to a property deal gone wrong as a result of the housing market crash, garnering almost 2 million hits.

The most recent parody is Hitler's supposed reaction to Constantin's decision to remove parodies, but the clips cover topics as broad as the death of Michael Jackson to the launch of the iPad, both of which are still available to view on YouTube.

Many others, though, now only display a pop-up message saying: "This video contains content from Constantin Film, who has blocked it on copyright grounds."

In order to remove the clips, Constantin is using Content ID, a tool supplied by YouTube to enable them to set different policies depending on the proportion of their content used in a video or the length of the clip.

Online rights advocates say that fair use provisions in many countries such as the US were created to allow some copyrighted material to be used for purposes such as satire or parody.

While they say creators of Hitler parodies could attempt to dispute the removal of their clips with Constantin, technologies such as Content ID have placed the onus on the public rather than copyright owners to prove whether the clip satisifies these criteria.

Colin Jacobs, chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia, said the recent trend was to hand more power to copyright holders than everyday people.

"It's hard to imagine these parody videos causing any significant economic damage to producers of this film ... but it is hard to say how something like the Downfall clip might play out [in a parody claim]" he said.

"This really shows we need really clear guidelines on what people can and can't do and err on side of letting people be more creative."

While Constantin is removing the parodies, director of the film Oliver Hirschbiegel has expressed a different view.

"Someone sends me the links every time there's a new one," he told the New York magazine in January. "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.

"I think it's only fair if now it's taken as part of our history, and used for whatever purposes people like."

Google says more than 1000 copyright holders around the world are tracking user uploaded versions of their content on YouTube, allowing them to choose whether or not to block it, monetise it with ads or track viewing metrics.

"It's used by every major US network broadcaster, movie studio, and record label and locally here by the ABC and Cricket Australia. The database has over 1 million reference files, making it one of the most comprehensive in the world", said Google spokeswoman Lucinda Barlow.

- © Fairfax NZ News