HERE’S a funny parody anti-piracy ad from the UK series “The IT Crowd” (whose US remake is supposed to debut this fall on NBC) that was, ahem, uploaded to YouTube. Don’t you just love irony?

Oh, and because you might get a kick out of it, here’s a blast from the past. It’s “Don’t Copy that Floppy,” the anti-piracy ad that the Software Publishers Association, now known as the Software and Information Industry Association, came out with in 1992, which is now enjoying a second life as a viral video thanks to sites like, ahem, YouTube.

A copy is also available for download at the Internet Archive. Yeah, I know you can find a lot of ways to download files off YouTube and other video sites, but why settle for the FLV file?

And speaking of irony, here’s a thought: this ad was talking about protecting creativity, but, really, how creative was this rapper dude ad? If you’re trying to convince people, would it hurt to come up with more interesting ways to convince them — and pay attention to the quality of your ads?