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Parody Time

Good times: “Brad Templeton, chairman of the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has produced his own Downfall parody video, making fun of the fact that Constantin Films has issued DMCA notices to remove all of the Downfall parody videos from YouTube.”

The issue with this kind of thing is that the social losses involved in cutting off all the parodies and remixes far, far exceed any actual losses incurred by the copyright holder. Whenever you strengthen IP protections, you do increase the financial incentives available to creators. But you also increase the burden on users and creators. There’s an appropriate balance to be struck, and banning these kind of parody videos doesn’t strike it.

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