The French online retailer Early Flicker has reportedly registered both the logo and slogan of hacktivist collective Anonymous with France's trademark agency, INPI.

The company, which specializes in personalized gifts and T-shirts, must be ignorant of the logo's source, otherwise it would be difficult to explain their willful provocation of a powerful anti-capitalist hivemind of hackers who would gladly erase Early Flicker from existence without hesitation.

Indeed, in an Anonymous call-to-action video posted to YouTube a short while ago, the group's signature text-to-speech voiceover can be heard demanding a retraction of the trademark application and a public apology in exchange for not unleashing Hell.

Of course, with the Streisand effect in play, Early Flicker could go down smiling with a big enough payday to rebuild itself as something more than just an eBay store.

[H/T: Betabeat, image via AP]