I was saddened to read that massively popular internet meme ‘Hitler finds out … ‘ is as doomed as the Third Reich leader’s attempt to win the war.

Internet memes don’t get better than this … you take a current event, something topical and news worthy, and shove it into the scene from the movie Downfall where Hitler learns in his bunker that he cannot win the war. The comedy bit comes in when you replace the subtitles with words of your own choosing.

The lastest one doing the rounds is a parody of the Apple employee who lost a secret test version of a new iPhone in a US bar, only for it to end up in the hands of tech site Gizmodo.

However, the fun looks like it has run its course after the German film company behind the movie imposed a copyright violation order, which YouTube is complying with.

YouTube seems to be pretty hot on copyright issues at the moment which is a shame for fans of the mash up but good news for big media owners sick to the back teeth of having their content watched for free.

In this case, however, I’m sure Downfall, which was a critical hit upon release but didn’t set the box office alight, did quite well on the back of the meme. Indeed, the director of Downfall loved the parodies.

In the meantime let’s hope the kittens don’t find out about all those videos people have made and contact their lawyers.