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University at Buffalo School of Law

2012

Copyright

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Reclaiming Copyright From The Outside In: What The Downfall Hitler Meme Means For Transformative Works, Fair Use, And Parody, Aaron Schwabach Apr 2012

Reclaiming Copyright From The Outside In: What The Downfall Hitler Meme Means For Transformative Works, Fair Use, And Parody, Aaron Schwabach

Buffalo Intellectual Property Law Journal

Continuing advances in consumer information technology have made video editing, once difficult, into a relatively simple matter. The average consumer can easily create and edit videos, and post them online. Inevitably many of these posted videos incorporate existing copyrighted content, raising questions of infringement, derivative versus transformative use, fair use, and parody.

This article looks at several such works, with its main focus on one category of examples: the Downfall Hitler meme. Downfall Hitler videos take as their starting point a particular sequence - Hitler's breakdown rant - from the 2004 German film Der Untergang [Downfall in the US]. The …