The video: With its fake Apple Stores and ersatz Chanel purses, China isn't known as a stickler for upholding intellectual property rights. The latest addition to its growing list of knock-off products: An Angry Birds amusement park. (Watch video below.) The real-life version of the wildly popular bird-catapulting mobile game, which opened Sept. 1 in Changsha, Hunan province, lets visitors load plush birds into giant slingshots and let 'em rip. Rovio, the Finnish game developer behind the real Angry Birds, said the park has not asked its permission to ape the game.
The reaction: This is like Christmas for the legions of "crazed" Angry Birds addicts who've long dreamed of "a park filled with life-sized birds and enormous slingshots," says Leah Beckman at Gawker. All they have to do is get to China before Rovio takes legal action over the obvious "violation of, duh, several copyrights." Then again, says Brent Randall at Pop Blend, Rovio seems pretty sanguine about the intellectual property theft. Maybe it's feeling generous, after being "valued at somewhere around $1.2 billion thanks to Angry Birds." Either way, this attraction is set to close at the end of September. See these real-life Angry Birds take flight:
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