"You're Not Stealing From Us Because We Give It To You For Free. So There !"

The relation between YouTube and the owners of popular audiovisual media copyrights has always been a most tempestuous one.  As an outlet for marketing and branding activities, the popular video site is a media company's wet dream, but as soon as someone else starts playing with their toys, all hell breaks loose.

Enter venerable British comedy anarchists Monty Python.  Even though they have been a YouTube member for more than two years, they only just started posting their own videos, for free.  Here's their rationale :

“For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It's time for us to take matters into our own hands.  We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell.

But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we've figured a better way to get our own back: We've launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube.  No more of those crap quality videos you've been posting. We're giving you the real thing - HQ videos delivered straight from our vault.  What's more, we're taking our most viewed clips and uploading brand new HQ versions. And what's even more, we're letting you see absolutely everything for free. So there!”

You have to admit, it sounds better than "If you can't beat them, join them".  So, all hail the Pythons !