The Downfall of Downfall on YouTube

[Casual Shinji]

I don't care, I actually applaud this.

I was getting sick of all those parodies, the real scene from the film is still the best. It may be funny to viewers who don't understand German, but I do and it got really redundant after two parodies.

Same here. Thank fucking God, they're getting rid of this crap.

One parody? Fine. But every fucking time there was a game related crisis, you'd see this "Hitler is mad about whatever" bullshit.
It was like the Scary/Epic/etc Movie of Youtube.

 

[SomeBoredGuy]

Hell, I even made one of these in honour of a popular person getting banned on a forum. It was eight kinds of crap, so I'm not ashamed about having deleted it before these guys got the chance to.

 

[SnipErlite]

Whah?

Free, widespread publicity.

And they block them all

What? Why?

:S

 

[Otterpoet]

The first one I ever saw was of Hitler Finds Out The Watchmen Ending Has Changed... that put me in stitches. What a foolish idea to remove something that will likely bring attention to your movie. Ah well.

EDIT: Of course, some of them are truly crap. Maybe this will lead to the death of Peanut Butter Jelly Time as well * fingers crossed *

 

[Yokai]

You have to love these giant corporations that fling out copyright claims and cease and desist notices left and right just because they can, when actually whatever fan-made productions are apparently in violation provide them with free publicity. It happens with better things than Downfall too (although they are pretty funny). Games Workshop has done this with the fan-made Warhammer 40k feature film and the fan-made Warhammer 40k third-person tactical shooter, for no logical reason other than technically they are a violation of copyright. It's an even stupider move for Constantin, as they're not nearly as well-known as Games Workshop. They're losing themselves a lot of money, or at least recognition.

 

[bjj hero]

Shame. My favourite (which probably won't make much sense to most people outside the UK) was "Hitler's BNP membership gets leaked".

"The neighbours are going to find out, aren't they? ... They'll think I'm some sort of Nazi."

Inspired.

I wish I'd been able to see that one. Guess I've missed the boat now.

 

[mambodog]

Constantin Films: you are made of fail and AIDS. You are throwing money in the toilet. Noobs.

 

[AceDiamond]

I love how people think overexposure is justification for banning videos that are parody, not caring that people's fair use rights are being trampled on. Sorry but overexposure is not a good reason to ban anything, and if it was I still wouldn't support it even if it meant American Idol would be perma-cancelled and we'd never have to deal with the Jonas Bros. ever again, among other things.

 

[puffenstuff]

This is wrong on so many levels. These works are probably protected under the first amendment/fair use regarding parody and they are being censored one one company's say so without ever getting a hearing in court. This is THE perfect example of why US copyright law is utterly broken. The courts have consistently held that free speech trumps copyright concerns but these take-down notices completely bypass these rulings....GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Doug]

What? They're banning those videos? That's the worst thing to happen to Youtube since they stopped allowing music videos to be shown in the UK! I think the Downfall parodies have actually done wonders for the film, I only heard about the film through the parodies myself. They've effectively brought the film itself a massive legion of fans, and are one of the best things to be on Youtube in a long time. I think Constantin are making a massive mistake, personally...

Agreed! I only have the DVD of Downfall because of these YouTube videos. Nice of Constantin to COMPLETELY miss the point, heh.

 

[Kojiro ftt]

FAIL! I never heard of the movie until the YouTube fad. I have it in my Netflix queue right now! My god, they should be promoting this stuff! Most movies would love this kind of publicity.

 

[Tales of Golden Sun]

Downfall.
Really?
DOWNFALL?
Not Der Untergang?

Is the only way to make a German film accessible for the US to make it English? You can't just change the foreign title,, it takes away the whole essence of the title! Just learn to pronounce german/french/whatever!

Damn title rapists

I don't get it either. Here in The Netherlands it was just 'Der Untergang'. Perhaps American English viewers fear subtitles or something, I don't know.

The reason I reacted this way is because I'm also a Dutchman, and thus familiar with the original title.

GO Constantin Film! Have those 'mericans learn German.

 

[RebelRising]

Of all the memes out there, the Hitler flip-outs were always my favorite.

The best, in my opinion, is "Hitler Plays Call of Duty: World at War". It's just so subversive.

 

[razormint21]

Downfall or Der Untergang is indeed a good film, and i can respect that....

But come on, if it wasn't for these videos, would people discover a local film from Germany?
Stop being a corporate idiot for once and be thankful...

fegelein fegelein fegelein!!!

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Riiighhtttttt........ and people wonder why copyright is out of whack when freedom of expression is hampered like this.... then again youtube makes money off page views so there is no winning under how things work these days....

 

[Weaver]

At least Oliver Hirschbiegel was cool about it!

 

[Serafis]

Weird. They have success and then try to put the plug on it? Sounds counterintuitive.

 

[Aenir]

...seriously? I had actually considered watching the movie from all these parodies. I hadn't even heard of it before them. This is the closest to shooting yourself in the foot that you can get, without doing it literally.

 

[GL2814E]

I heard somewhere, (so take it with a grain of salt for my uncaring memory) but don't companies have to pursue these copyright claims so their IP doesn't fall into the Public Domain? If that is true I can understand the Constantin Films' actions. However I will miss someone suggesting to Hitler that he get a Wii over the Xbox thing.