It was one of the first internet memes: a buff European dude dancing in the street called “Technoviking”. It was a hit on the internet before “memes” were called “memes” and caught the wave right as it swelled.
Mattias Fritsch shot the video of the dude in 2000 at an event called “Fuckparade” in Berlin (they really don’t beat around the bush, those Germans). For those of you who haven’t seen it, here’s what transpires:
The camera shows a motley crew of ravers dancing to techno in a Berlin street. After about a minute, a topless hulk of a man comes into shot, and wards off another male with alpha aggression. He approaches the camera, points his finger in the air and then starts pacing forward, like a warrior leading his troops into battle. An aide holds a bottle of water in front of him, which he snatches, sips, and hands back. The music drops, and Technoviking starts to dance, a phalanx of ravers behind him.
Fritsch uploaded the video to his site in 2001 and thought nothing of it.
Six years later, when Youtube went live, someone uploaded it there, where it went viral, became a meme, spawned parodies, and became a cornerstone of internet culture.
Fritsch decided to make some t-shirts off the meme and participate in the artistic aspect of it.
And then things got ugly:
Two years and millions of hits later, a letter landed on Fritsch’s doorstep. It was Technoviking’s lawyer [Fritsch doesn’t want to get into any more trouble by identifying the plaintiff by his real name], demanding that Fritsch agree to unpublish the video and never use it again for commercial purposes. Fritsch had made around €10,000 from the video through YouTube ad revenue, licensing the clip to a couple of TV shows and through the aforementioned T-shirt sales. The letter was threatening to sue him for €250,000 if he didn’t comply.
That escalated really quickly.
Fritsch responded that he would compromise and agree to not even sell anything that had to do with the meme, just use it for educational purposes, and Technoviking’s lawyer said it was a no-go.
And here’s the result:
After three years of wrangling, a decision was reached in court: Fritsch was forced to agree to only use the video if he manipulates the images in such a way that he can’t be identified.
In addition to censoring the video, Fritsch must pay the plaintiff €8,000 — the vast majority of the money he made from the video. That’s on top of the €7,000 in legal bills. He says that the trial will bankrupt him. “I haven’t had the bill yet. The final letter came on 10 June,” he says, despondently.
The parody wasn’t even disparaging, and was used for artistic purposes. Now that the meme has tried to be killed, it’s only become more popular, showing one lesson: you can’t kill a meme.
