Print

[pioneer11]

Edit to add: Also you forgot that it allows for "comic effect" OR "ridicule". This is certainly comic effect.

Edit to add again: Your argument could be used to say that Weird Al's "Amish Paradise" doesn't ridicule the authors or anyone else involved either.

Comic effect or ridicule don't matter if you have not passed the other tests.

Weird Al's work is not a good example because he usually (if not always) gets permission of the copyright owner.

The very reason that I picked "Amish Paradise" was because the copyright owner claimed that he did not give permission and was quite vocally upset.

The only test that you pointed out that it violated was Parody and you haven't refuted either what Ira nor I have said regarding Sales and Parody. Are there any other tests that you feel have been failed in a relevant manner?

Another difference of note is that Weird Al does not merely take the instrumental track from the original work and change the lyrics.  He recreates the work with his own musicians.  The Hitler parodies use the original video.  That is a huge difference.

[Xenon481]

Edit to add: Also you forgot that it allows for "comic effect" OR "ridicule". This is certainly comic effect.

Edit to add again: Your argument could be used to say that Weird Al's "Amish Paradise" doesn't ridicule the authors or anyone else involved either.

Comic effect or ridicule don't matter if you have not passed the other tests.

Weird Al's work is not a good example because he usually (if not always) gets permission of the copyright owner.

The very reason that I picked "Amish Paradise" was because the copyright owner claimed that he did not give permission and was quite vocally upset.

The only test that you pointed out that it violated was Parody and you haven't refuted either what Ira nor I have said regarding Sales and Parody. Are there any other tests that you feel have been failed in a relevant manner?

Another difference of note is that Weird Al does not merely take the instrumental track from the original work and change the lyrics.  He recreates the work with his own musicians.  The Hitler parodies use the original video.  That is a huge difference.

Music is copyrighted at the level of notes and rhythms, not just at the performance level. There are numerous bodies which have been sued successfully for having re-performed (with their own musicians) a piece of music without permissions. That gets rid of your claimed difference.

[pioneer11]

Music is copyrighted at the level of notes and rhythms, not just at the performance level. There are numerous bodies which have been sued successfully for having re-performed (with their own musicians) a piece of music without permissions. That gets rid of your claimed difference.

Yes, I agree with the first sentence.  Performance licensing is a completely different issue that is not relevant here.

[GLeaderAccountantsChoice]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBO5dh9qrIQ

[onthefence]

The movie is 156 minutes.  The video clip is 4 minutes.  So that is less than 2.6% of the movie. 
PLUS, it is not using the original captions. 
PLUS, it is presented in a much lower resolution than the actual move, DVD or Blu-ray offerings.
That makes the content much less that 2.6% of the movie.

No money is being made off of that clip.

The movie came out September 16, 2004.  The first parody clip came out August 10, 2006.  I suspect that the onslaught of parody clips has increase the demand for rental and purchase of the original movie.  I don't think the movie company will be able to prove economic harm.  In fact, it should be feasible to prove they obtained an economic benefit.  Many parody clips have had comments asking what the move is and where they can get it.

That said, a good deal of the humor involved in the downfall parody clip is in how it mocks the use of subtitles for foreign audiences.  As far as non-german speakers are concerned, they could be saying anything.  It would be nowhere near as funny if the clips had simply edited out the original audio.

The EFF lawyer stated

All the ones that I've seen are very strong fair use cases and so they're not infringing, and they shouldn't be taken down.

http://www.eff.org/press/mentions/2010/4/23

While I suspect the EFF lawyer has not seen this particular clip, it would be fair to expect that the EFF lawyer has seen a number of downfall parody clips that follow this same formula.

[Urbi_et_Orbi]

So, more than 4 years passed before the copyright owner decided to take action - even though the alleged infringement was a minor global phenomenon accessed by millions of people?

[The_Cat]

Don't feel bad Urbi 

[onthefence]

All I know is that I've been told over and over again that this Hitler downfall parodies are not funny if you speak German.  Poking fun at the use of the audio dubbing for foreign films seems to be a necessary component to the humor.

[brianguy]

I speak bits of german and find it funny many of the vids, as long as the volume is not too high.  the "real" audio is too distracting, but bottom line even when I know what he is saying I still laugh at what some people have managed to come up with instead. 

I liked the one about deleting Hitler videos, and the chick comments on how irony will strike Hitler momentarily   

[The_Cat]

All I know is that I've been told over and over again that this Hitler downfall parodies are not funny if you speak German.  Poking fun at the use of the audio dubbing for foreign films seems to be a necessary component to the humor.

I guess if you speak German you get a sense of how delusional/evil Hitler really was. If you are a serious history buff you probably know how serious into the occult this guy was.