The director of a widely circulated "Power Rangers" fan film claims he's being harassed by rights holder Saban Brands, which pressured Vimeo to remove the NSFW version of the 14-minute short. An alternate, work-safe edit remains on YouTube.

"Saban is trying to shut 'Power/Rangers' down," “Detention” director Joseph Kahn tweeted on Tuesday. "If you'd like to keep watching, tell them to stop harassing me."

Released late Monday, the short is an incredibly bleak and violent sequel to the long-running children's action franchise, starring Katee Sackhoff as Kimberly and James Van Der Beek as a traitorous Rocky. As of this morning, the YouTube video has been viewed more than 5.9 million times.

Vimeo reportedly removed the video following a takedown notice filed by SCG Power Rangers LLC, a division of Saban, which holds the Power Rangers copyrights and is co-producing a 2016 film reboot with Lionsgate. However, Kahn countered that "Power/Rangers" is a parody, protected by the "fair use" doctrine of U.S. copyright law.

"Every image in 'Power/Rangers" is original footage," he wrote. "Nothing was pre-existing. There is no copyrighted footage in the short. I am not making any money on it and I refuse to accept any from anyone. It was not even kickstarted, I paid for it myself. This was made to be given away for free. It is just as if I drew a pic of Power Rangers on a napkin and I gave it to my friend."