Anonymous Unwittingly Funds Time Warner

[The Bandit]

"It's a symbol of what Anonymous stands for, of fighting evil governments," said a protester wearing the mask last month outside another Scientology protest. "You can get a mask and join the fight, too! But I heard the costume store is sold out until Friday."

That's cute. Anonymous crack me up sometimes, really. I wonder how your average Anonymous member would fare in Libya right now?

Yeah, because that quote wasn't completely made up at all. I'm sure the Escapist has reporters on the field interviewing Anonymous.

And, surprise! there's no integrity issues because anyone can be a member of Anonymous.

 

[fulano]

People should just make up their own damn masks and be done wih this nonsense.

 

[The Random One]

Wait, you can have rights over that? Isn't it like a British folk symbol? Are they going to trademark maple leaves next?

And the symbol is flawed as well.... "Fawkes was a fighter for Spain and the Catholic Church. His goal was to end the slightly more egalitarian Protestant revolution in England by restoring Catholic domination." (quote from Cracked.com)
P.S. First!

Yeah, though Alan Moore is more to blame for that one than Anonymous.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I guess it's more memorable than a ski mask.
Oh wait, that already has another symbolic association..

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Surely Anon just need to set up a slightly altered, copyright dodging version of the mask, and flood the markets with cheaper copies on ebay and the like

That'd be the 'anon' way of dealing with this.

After all, aren't people wearing these as a show of support for Anon, not as a fan of the V for Vendetta movie?

I'm just personally gutted that Alan Moore doesn't have the rights to it and everything else to do with his work.

 

[cjbos81]

Everyone hates big corporations, but modern life just would not be possible without them.

And by the way, since when has the church of Scientology been considered a totalitarian government. If you don't like them, just ignore them!

If these people had real balls, they would do this kind of crap in Syria or Iran.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

So a mask that has been around for centuries is used in a movie, and that means Warner Bros. owns it? How does that even work? But Anonymous are a bunch of idiots anyways, so I suppose this is fitting for them.

On a side note, since when have Time Warner owned British history? Is it common for companies to hold IP rights over historical figures?

Wait, you can have rights over that? Isn't it like a British folk symbol? Are they going to trademark maple leaves next?

I think the point of the article is that Warner Bros. happens to have a line of licensed Guy Fawkes masks, and that line is where most of the masks Anons end up buying come from. There are certainly other ones being sold; if I understand correctly, they've been around and in use in England since before V for Vendetta was even written, and that's what Moore was referencing in the first place by giving him one. But they weren't really widely available in the US until Warner started licensing them as tie-ins for the movie. And since the vast majority of Anons are Americans, well, you do the math.

So that just leaves the question of why any of the licensees thought they needed to buy the license in the first place to make and sell them. Maybe they figured ? at the time ? that they weren't likely to sell very well without explicit (and definitely copyright-protected) V for Vendetta branding on the packaging.

Also,

That's why every good Anonymous member should steal the Guy Fawkes mask whenever they have a big protest coming up. It's the only way to be sure.

(Please don't steal. The above recommendation is for ironic purposes only.)

now I know why anarchists are so into theft.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Shortly after realizing this, Anonymous was dissolved after a series of in-fightings and losses of wills to live. No one really cared since Anonymous doesn't really lend itself to any real audience because it pisses off as many people as it does herald.

 

[Thaluikhain]

And the symbol is flawed as well.... "Fawkes was a fighter for Spain and the Catholic Church. His goal was to end the slightly more egalitarian Protestant revolution in England by restoring Catholic domination." (quote from Cracked.com)
P.S. First!

That article is a load of bullshit. The gunpowder plot was in part motivated by Spain washing its hands off of the situation in England and Guy Fawkes definitely didn?t work for the church. And it ignores the fact that Catholics were being persecuted in England.

What, a Cracked article was full of shit? Wonders never end.

Ok, yeah, in retrospect, it does need to be pointed out, because people believe it for some reason. But then, same could be said of the OP.

 

[Blood Countess]

What I want to know is who is making money off all these Che Guevara shirts you see people (plenty of whom probably have little knowledge of what Che did, what he stood for etc. but that's beside the point) wearing. You just know that'll be some shady capitalist corporation that Che would likely despise.

I have brought this up before in San Francisco at a shirt shop and got dirty looks from quite a few people yet it is true

ot - I love the irony in this but common sense half the time doesn't apply to people with an agenda but that is how things go I suppose, let them be idiots

 

[ace_of_something]

They should wear paper plates with eye holes punched in them held on with string.

That would stick it to the man.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

And the symbol is flawed as well....
P.S. First!

You mean that Guy Fawkes was actually a Catholic working for the Church to overthrow Parliament? Yeah, Cracked has some good articles.

Are you being sarcastic or do you actually think that Guy Fawkes worked for the Catholic Church?

Guy Fawkes was a fighter for the Spanish and the Church - hence his dress. He was in Parliament trying to kill Oliver Cromwell/King James I and put the Catholic Church back in control of the country. Had it not been for the Black Plague postponing the meeting of Parliament - and the anonymous snitch (oooh the irony), we would be a European Theocracy by now.

He may not have been working for the Church. But he was working to exactly the same ends as the Church.

Guy Fawkes (13 April 1570 ? 31 January 1606), also known as Guido Fawkes, the name he adopted while fighting for the Spanish in the Low Countries, belonged to a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

Nope, no sarcasm. Even V's job was allegedly to bring down the Government, V never succeeded (directly) Evie may have misinterpreted him.

 

[Kahani]

Reminds me of the campaign to make Killing in the Name the Christmas number one in the UK, in protest at the winner of the X-Factor being guaranteed to get it every year. Of course, both songs were published by the same label, so the same people got the money anyway.

Even V's job was allegedly to bring down the Government, V never succeeded (directly) Evie may have misinterpreted him.

The really amusing part is that the comic V was not particularly similar to the film one. V wasn't some heroic freedom fighter trying to bring down a facist government, the whole point was that he was a ruthless killer who would do anything to get his way. He was actually just as bad as the people he was fighting against, just in a different way. Just like anonymous!

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

Everyone knows that someone profits when we buy things. I'll bet someone associated with Anonymous ate at McDonald's once or bought clothes in a store. But I don't find this ironic or in violation of some principle or whatever.

Also, have you ever seen a video released by someone claiming association with Anonymous? It's a little threatening and creepy. I really don't think it matters what Guy Fawkes was trying to do, only that he plotted in secret against the powers-that-be.

 

[DTWolfwood]

just be cheap and make your own mask. And make sure you use materials bought from small mom'n'pop stores. THEN you will be 99% sure you aren't supporting the corporate overlords you claim to hate!

You know because the cloths you wear, the house you live under, the internet you use, or the computer you interact with doesn't come from these global corporate conspirators!

 

[Jake Lewis Clayton]

"It's a symbol of what Anonymous stands for, of fighting evil governments," said a protester wearing the mask last month outside another Scientology protest. "You can get a mask and join the fight, too! But I heard the costume store is sold out until Friday."

That's cute. Anonymous crack me up sometimes, really. I wonder how your average Anonymous member would fare in Libya right now?

Quite easily, there's only 4 towns left to take and in 3 of those towns the NTC is in talks with the elders of the towns.

So theres about 400 rebels vs and unknown ammount gadaffi troops left fighting near sirte and thats it, rest of the country is celebrating.