CORPORATE TOOLS: Masked Anonymous Protesters Aid Time Warner’s Bottom Line.

When members appear in public to protest censorship and what they view as corruption, they don a plastic mask of Guy Fawkes, the 17th-century Englishman who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

Stark white, with blushed pink cheeks, a wide grin and a thin black mustache and goatee, the mask resonates with the hackers because it was worn by a rogue anarchist challenging an authoritarian government in “V for Vendetta,” the movie produced in 2006 by Warner Brothers.

What few people seem to know, though, is that Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world and parent of Warner Brothers, owns the rights to the image and is paid a licensing fee with the sale of each mask.

Anarchists have pretty much always been tools, though. (Well, the big-mouthed variety. As Robert Heinlein noted, the small-mouthed variety of anarchist is a very different breed). I love it that “anonymity” is misspelled in the photo, too.