Angry Birds maker turns tables on Chinese pirates

With pirates making knockoff merchandise of the characters from the massively popular video game “Angry Birds," the game’s maker is looking to turn the tables on them by pirating the pirates. Rovio’s chief marketing officer Peter Versterbacka said he is roaming shops in China to look for unauthorized items – so he can copy them. “I think that ‘Angry Birds’ is now the most copied brand in China ... We get a lot of inspiration from local producers so I’m going to take these back and tell our, okay, please copy these products," he said, according to an article on tech site TechCrunch. When asked if he was basically “pirating the pirates," he said, “Absolutely, absolutely. We get a lot of inspiration from the copies here." Versterbacka said he noted many toy shops and electronics stores sell Angry Bird-themed goods, ranging from sweatshirts and jeans to candy and balloons. The “Angry Birds" game had gained immense popularity since it started out as a game for smartphones and has since spawned various merchandises. “And why shouldn’t he do it? The intellectual property being utilized is, after all, his company’s. If someone’s looking to make a quick buck off of his team’s work and creativity, there’s really no reason the tables shouldn’t be turned," TechCrunch said. Meanwhile, Rovio Entertainment plans to open its first retail stores this year in China, its fastest-growing market, according to a report on Bloomberg. Vesterbacka said at the Techcrunch conference in Beijing that Rovio aims to hit $100 million in retail sales in China in the first year of store operations. “China is our fastest-growing market, so we are taking it very seriously. We want to be more Chinese than the Chinese companies," Bloomberg quoted him as saying. — TJD, GMA News