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ONE OF the most hated villains in history was also a cult figure on YouTube. Until April 21, that is. A video clip of Adolf Hitler from the movie The Downfall was often used by humourists to poke fun at zeitgeist events by adding funny sub- titles to the German- language movie excerpt.

For example, when Usain Bolt created a world record, Hitler was there to show his anger. When author Chetan Bhagat began blocking people from his Twitter account for poking fun at him, Chennai- based IT professional and humourist Krish Ashok posted a video of Hitler seething at the author for blocking him.

But on April 21, Constantin Film AG, the producers of the German movie Der Untergang ( The Downfall) forced YouTube to take down all such Hitler parodies for copyright infringement.

Such was the outrage over this act that pranksters immediately put up a parody of the act of pulling down all parodies.

In the new video, Hitler says: “ Haven't they ever heard of fair use? Title 17, U. S. C., Section 107? Parody is not an infringement of copyright.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which fights for digital rights, said: “ If copyright owners want to block remix creativity, they should have to use a formal Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice ( and be subject to legal punishment if they fail to consider fair use), rather than a coarse automated blocking tool.” In fact, the EFF had asked YouTube to fix the bugs in the Content ID system ( which tracks copyright infringement) so that remixed videos are not automatically removed. “ That was over two years ago,” EFF says, “ And YouTube told us then that they were working on improving the tool. If YouTube is serious about protecting its users, it is long past time for YouTube to do that work.