One of the biggest and best Web video memes of the past few years is the one which sees Hitler’s final bunker speech from Downfall altered to make reference to the story of the day. But it could be all over, as copyright claims come a-calling.
Web Video Memes
Web video memes are quite numerous, but the really good ones, the gems, are few and far between. We try to sort the wheat from the chaff, to save everyone else the trouble of doing so, over at WebTVHub.
Rickrolling and its various different incarnations is one of the best-known, and the recent Nike commercial starring Tiger Woods and his dead father is another.
However, the cream of the crop has to be the Hitler Downfall meme, which has spawned a huge amount of video parodies since the release of the film in 2004.
Hitler’s Downfall Video
is a German film from 2004 which documents the last ten days of Hitler and the Nazis. The film caused controversy upon release for its obviously sensitive subject matter, but us relatively unknown outside of Germany.
One key scene, which shows Hitler ranting at the Nazi hierarchy after realizing the war is lost, has been used as the basis for a Web video meme, with subtitles added to suggest Hitler is bemoaning other news stories.
Two of the most popular parodies are Hitler getting angry over HD DVD losing the HD format war to Blu-ray, and Hitler’s reaction to the Apple iPad.
Constantin Film Copyright Claims
Unfortunately, both of those videos now cannot be watched, along with the majority of the famous Downfall parodies on YouTube, with a, “This video contains content from Constantin Film, who has blocked it on copyright grounds,“ message appearing instead.
That’s right folks, six years after the film’s release, and with hundreds of parodies on the Web, some of which have been watched by millions of people, Constantin Film has decided to pull the plug. Which is a truly bizarre turn of events.
Conclusions
The clip obviously does belong to Constantin Film, so it is within its rights to order its removal from YouTube. But why would it do so? I doubt I’m alone in having never heard of Downfall before this meme began, and now I’m actually rather keen to see the film. Which, by my reckoning, is great publicity.
How long until someone makes a parody of this whole situation? And how long until Constantin Film orders that clip be removed as well.
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