Monty Python have launched their own YouTube channel which includes a huge selection of some of their best sketches.

John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin said that they wanted to laucnh their own channel because they were fed up with people watching bad quality clips of their sketches online.

“For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube,” said a statement on the group’s page. “Now the tables are turned. It’s time for us to take matters into our own hands.”

It continued:

“No more of those crap quality videos you’ve been posting. We’re giving you the real thing – HQ (high quality) 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!”

What an awesome move from these comedy legends – rather than suing the fans or having all the videos removed, they’re delivering all those sketches for free. Well, they do urge you to buy their DVDs, but I think that’s an opt-in thing!