No springtime for Hitler

US CIVIL LIBERTIES GROUP the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has blamed Youtube's censorship friendly filtering system for killing Hitler bunker parody videos.

We reported this morning that Youtube was getting its knickers in a twist because of potential copyright violations over the Hitler bunker parody from the film "Downfall". The copyright holders, Constantin Film, told Youtube to take down all parodies, which could take very long time given that half of Youtube consists of Hitler parody clips. Well, not really, but there are many of them.

Now the EFF is stating that Youtube's Content ID filtering system has hastened the demise of Hitler's bunker diatribe parodies.

"Because the Content I.D. filter permits a copyright owner to disable any video that contains its copyrighted content -- whether or not that video contains other elements that make the use a non infringing fair use -- a content owner can take down a broad swath of fair uses with the flick of a switch. It seems that's exactly what Constantin Film has chosen to do," said EFF's Corynne McSherry.

The EFF reported that it had called on Youtube to change its automated blocking tool over two years ago and is still waiting for a reply.

So much for Google's self-congratulatory claims regarding its alleged openness and transparency. µ