Anonymous Group Aids Time Warner’s Bottom Line

NYTimes: Supporters of the “Anonymous” hacktivist group may be surprised to learn that their actions could be contributing to the bottom line of one of America’s largest corporations. Every time someone buys one of the Guy Fawkes masks favored by the group, Time Warner gets a licensing fee. Anonymous supporters have worn the masks at Scientology and BART protests.

The masks are tremendously popular, outselling Batman, Harry Potter and Darth Vader masks on Amazon.com. “We sell over 100,000 of these masks a year, and it’s by far the best-selling mask that we sell,” said Howard Beige of Rubie’s Costume, a New York company that produces the mask. “In comparison, we usually only sell 5,000 or so of our other masks.”