Thread: Does Anonymous Need to Find a New Mask?

The New York Times reported today that the Guy Fawkes mask Anonymous helped make famous is actually owned by Time Warner, Inc. Is it time to find a new mask?

Earlier this morning the New York Times reported that the Guy Fawkes mask, which hacking coalition Anonymous has made part of its signature, is owned by Time Warner, Inc.

Time Warner has owned the rights to the image and likeness of the Guy Fawkes visage—instantly recognizable with its white face and thin black mustache—since 2006 when it was used prominently in Warner’s film version of Alan Moore’s graphic novel “V for Vendetta.”

The “Times” article describes sales of the mask, which has quickly grown to a top-selling mask nationwide, as adding to Time Warner’s “bottom line,” and an article in Time today insists the mask “is earning big bucks for a major media conglomerate.”

Of course, this needs to be taken with a grain of salt. An executive from Rubie’s Costume in New York which produces the mask tells the “Times” they sell 100,000 of them per year, and it’s the top selling mask on Amazon. Still, at a $6 retail value and Time Warner earning just a piece of the sale from licensing rights, it’s unlikely that that the fees Warner realizes from the Guy Fawkes mask are more than a drop in the bucket of the company’s $28 billion in revenue it earned last year.

So while it may not be quite accurate to say “Anonymous actually pads the pockets” of Time Warner, as Time insists, it does raise some philosophical questions about the reach of corporate tentacles in the modern world.

The very fact that an American corporation such as Time Warner can own the “image and likeness” of a 17th century folk hero who wasn’t even American—who indeed lived before the founding of America—boggles the mind. Add to the mix the fact that Fawkes was an anti-corruption anarchist who tried to blow up the house of Parliament, and the corporate co-opting of such a figure seems downright dumbfounding.

There’s also the question of whether Anonymous even has any beef with Time Warner, per se. As enemies of Wikileaks and free speech saboteurs Visa and Amazon have both incurred the wrath of Anonymous, but I don’t know where the group stands on Time Warner.

At any rate, the revelation that Time Warner has dibs on the Guy Fawkes image makes one realize how far one must go to make a statement that’s truly anti-corporate, and truly anonymous. Fictional folk heroes like Robin Hood and Batman are corporate copyrights, as are real-life ones like Guy Fawkes. Hell, even the Barefoot Bandit is selling his life rights to a movie studio. Wherever you go, some discernible entity is profiting at the bottom line.

Perhaps it’s time for Anonymous to find a new mask? The group has at times used the symbol of a question mark, which would seem universal enough to elude corporate grasp but tough to wear on your face—which clearly has come in handy in the group’s in-person protests against Scientology and BART. To be uniform and identity-less is a key part of the Anonymous persona.

So maybe they just stick with the mask? After all, at stake is an issue deeper than who pockets a few bucks off the sale of a mask. Time Warner may make it, and may even claim “image and likeness” rights on some piece of paper somewhere. But clearly Anonymous owns it. Perhaps the dissonance of that fact is worth more than the price of re-branding.

Source

Like anonymous will gave a **** and they will hacking to just show sercuity holes and there mask seems fine

Like anonymous gives a **** who owns it. Like Time Warner could sue anyone who is in fact anonymous over the use of it. They're not making money or marketing a "brand" with this mask so this is pretty much the most useless article I've read all month.

Majority of people that purchase these masks are people at teh chanz.. If anything anonymous is lining those fatass CEO's pockets.

I doubt TW would sue Anonymous over this, they are getting free advertisement out of this plus all the sales from the masks.
$$$

anonymous does not have a mask. it does not matter so long as they are all the same.