WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is up with an answer for MasterCard by spoofing the credit card company's signature 'priceless' commericials.
MasterCard is one of the major credit card companies that is blocking over $15million in donations to the web-based whistleblower group.
Now WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has hit back in the minute-long video which lists the group's expenses as it defends itself from challenges.
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The costs, according to the video, include: 20 secure phones costing $5,000, server upkeep in 40 countries at $200,000, legal bills in five countries at $1million, Assange's house arrest in Britain at $500,000 - and of course the $15million in donations lost thanks to the banking blockade.
Then the camera tilts up to reveal a smirking Assange watching footage of crowds protesting during one of the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East earlier this year.
'Watching the world change as a result of your work: priceless,' the narrator states, adding: 'Watching the world change as a result of your work: priceless,' the narrator states, adding: 'There are some people who don't like change. For everyone else, there's WikiLeaks.'
MasterCard has taken legal action to prevent parodies of its ads in the past. In 2004, the company lost a suit against former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who mimicked the company in a political ad.
The company has not yet commented on Assange's version.
WikiLeaks exploded on to the global political scene last fall when the website published thousands of unedited pieces of correspondence between U.S. State Department officials in embassies abroad and headquarters in Washington, DC.
WikiLeaks claimed the Arab Spring protests that toppled governments in Egypt and Tunisia as a wave of democracy spread across the Middle East were inspired by the evidence of corruption in those countries exposed by the U.S. cables.
However the State Department claims WikiLeaks had no part in inspiring the revolutions.
Instead, the U.S. claims that citizens of the countries were spurred to protest of their own accord, inspired by homegrown movements building on years of frustration with their leaders.
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