Sony slammed for graffiti’ing America

Urban Nomadic Graffiti Art? Or Paid-For Vandalism?

Posted by Staff
Sony slammed for graffiti’ing America
Regional newspapers and campaigners for clearner cities across the US are up in arms today at a new PlayStation advertising campaign, which uses illegal paid-for graffiti to advertise the PlayStation Portable.

Sides of abandoned buildings across the country have been the sites of the black-on-white graffiti, which shows wide-eyed cartoon characters riding the PlayStation like a skateboard, licking it like a lollipop or cranking it like a Jack-in-the-Box.

As is common with subtle PlayStation advertising, there's no mention of the Sony or PlayStation brands – nor even any hint that the wordless display is an ad. But its fairly clear that the illegal graffiti / stealth marketing campaign (depending on where you stand on the issue) which has been reported in Philadelphia, San Francisco, New York and other large U.S. cities was a paid-for marketing exercise by Sony. Unless there is a very rich, very fast graf artist doing the rounds of all these cities in a very short space of time, painting 'homages' to Sony across the land for the good of his art. Which SPOnG doubts.

"They're breaking the law," said Mary Tracy, who runs the Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight in Philadelphia, a watchdog group that fights illegal or ill-advised billboards. Mrs Tracy went on the claim that Sony has directly ignored the zoning process that regulates outdoor commercial advertising in the city.

Another SCRUB (get it!) member, Philly resident Pedro Ramos sent a cease-and-desist letter to Sony Computer Entertainment's U.S. division in San Mateo, California. Even though Mr Ramos accepts that he is a very minor threat to Sony, he could seek modest fines allowed by city code or sue them to recover any profit the ads produced. If this were to occur then Sony would have some serious egg on their collar.

The Sony division have not, at the time of going to press, responded to Mr Ramos’ letter. However, Sony spokeswoman Molly Smith told an online news source at Wired magazine earlier this month that Sony was hiring artists in a number of cities - Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago were the others - to spray paint the pre-drawn designs.

"With PSP being a portable product, our target is what we consider to be urban nomads," Smith told Wired News.

SPOnG is not sure where we stand on this issue. Sure its vandalism to graffiti over private property, and vandalism should generally be discouraged. However, we also consider graffiti, if done well, to be a valid artform and sometimes it can work to improve the look and feel of an area – especially if that area was previously a run-down, disused warehouse or shop covered in music industry flyers.

Which brings us onto our second point - the music industry seem to have been getting away with illegally flyering the same zones for years, so why does the games industry seem to get so much flak for doing something which could actually be considered a little more creative and fun?

Let us know your thoughts on the matter in the forums below.

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Comments

Greg2k 29 Dec 2005 16:30
1/8
Umm, Sony seem to be acting a little tougher lately. Ever since the rootkit, they've been making these decisions which pretty much soil their reputation as a generally good brand. If they continue this way, the Sony brand won't be worth s**t. And since their products pretty much suck, they'd be in trouble.
crs117 29 Dec 2005 16:43
2/8
This is kind of old news (came out nearly a month ago), but i think it is great. The once unstoppable, unpenatrible force that was sony is now starting to strain and fall apart under its own strength. Nobody made sony do this...they just dont get it. Their products are poor in construct and reliability anymore and they still charge a major premium.

By the way they the people that owned each place to be able to tag it (they are hardcore underground lol), but they broke the law because they didnt abide by city codes and within hours of putting up the art, true taggers came by and defaced them (in quite humorous ways).

Does anybody else find it entertaining that sony is trying to target a $250 technological paper weight that you can pay $20 a pop to watch movies on or $40 a pop to play a horrible selection of games to urban low on cash communities? Does not make very much sense to me.

Keep up the great work sony!!!

Christian
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crs117 29 Dec 2005 19:00
3/8
crs117 wrote:

By the way they the people that owned each place to be able to tag it (they are hardcore underground lol), but they broke the law because they didnt abide by city codes and within hours of putting up the art, true taggers came by and defaced them (in quite humorous ways).


The first sentence was supposed to read "By the way Sony paid the people that owned each place to be able to tag it (they are hardcore underground)...

Christian
realvictory 29 Dec 2005 19:14
4/8
Pff...

Illegal or not, I think it's the same as any art - if it hurts people, then it's wrong, otherwise, the people complaining are just complaining for the sake of it. Although, ultimately, I think advertising is immoral - people should only buy something that actually want, and not want something because they are told they need it.

I see no point in trying to slag off Sony or any other company by saying "they make bad quality products" - that's a matter of personal opinion, depending on what you were expecting when you bought/stole it.

The last thing I have to say is, if I was an illegal graffiti artist, what would I make pictures of? Computer games, of course! On a good day, anyway - otherwise it would be sex, politics, or swear words (possibly included under "politics")...
crs117 29 Dec 2005 20:10
5/8
realvictory wrote:

I see no point in trying to slag off Sony or any other company by saying "they make bad quality products" - that's a matter of personal opinion, depending on what you were expecting when you bought/stole it.


Well in my experience and the experience of all of my friends (who are all technofiles) Sony makes crappy products.

I used to be a big sony fan that only purchased sony crt's as they made the best CRT display. I have owned nothing but trinitrons for years including my families first big screen tube (27 inches in 1980) is a sony trinitron (i do believe) which still works. My first VCR also sony (from 1980 or 81) also still works.

Fast Forward to today...

I am on my third PS2 and i know 3 other friends that are on at least their 3rd ps2 and i know a dozen others that are on their 2nd ps2. The only reason i purchased the 3rd ps2 was because i didnt want to not be able to play my game library when i wanted to. I am almost too scared to even play my ps2 cause i know that it has a limited number of rotations allowed in the disk drive before failure.

The last dv camera I purchased had 5 dead pixels on the display and cost me much more then my current dv camera which is flawless.

So i think i have a little bit of room to talk about sony making crap products when i went from only buying sony products to in the last 5 years not wanting to spend another dime on sony because of their crappy products.

This does not mention at all of their drm crap they have pulled lately and blaming their consumers for the need of even having it and saying we are too dumb to know the difference.

If i where anybody here I would be scared to death to hook anything up to a future ps3 unless you wanted sony to lock out all of the functionality without telling you with some new wacked out DRM.

So again...in my personal opinion from over 25 years of sony experience...Sony now produces little more then crappy products. No ps3 for me.

Christian
crs117 29 Dec 2005 20:11
6/8
Also what is with the "bought/stole" it? i am a software engineer why would i need to steal anything?

Christian
Joji 29 Dec 2005 23:18
7/8
Graffiti is another form of art, that can be used for advertising purposes, which is clearly what Sony are doing. I'm sure it's all paid for and above board. Problem is that paranoid android yanks get funny about it and it's news worthy.

Were it another form of acceptable art style like traditional photography plastered on billboards or buildings nothing would be said.

An artist can be rich and commercial or a poor sap from the ghetto with spray cans and imagination, either way both are the same.



crs117 29 Dec 2005 23:42
8/8
I agree with the sentiment that art is art...but I have to beg to differ that this would constitute as art. I mean sony sent out packages to different paid graffiti groups around the US and they where paid to paint exact (to the T) representations of what sony sent them to do. This is as much artwork as me getting a paint by colors book.

I am a musician (used to do it for a living), and I do appreciate most all forms of art, but it is illegal to for me bust out on the roof of a business building with a high powered system and put on a concert (ala streets with no name U2) without getting a permit. This does not mean its not art, nor that it is always wrong cause if i get a permit then i can close off a street and put on a music festival without consequences.

Same thing applies for graffiti. According to City laws you have to get a permit to "deface" any city buildings whether you own them or not. This could be as simple as painting a nice mural to actually getting some kind of graffiti permit. This is to help control the amount of unwanted graffiti from showing up everywhere and giving anybody the oppertunity to deface any building they want without permission.

Like i said in my first post within hours most of these ads where re-tagged by real graffiti artists, usually with profanity and this is why the city tries to keep it under control. This just shows that the real graffiti artists that you are trying to defend, feel the same way that I do that this was not real art but the sony machine trying to be "cool". The real artists saw right through it and did something about it. You should try to look up the pictures they are pretty funny actually.

Sony as a company should have known better especially after IBM pulled a similar stunt only a year or two ago.

Christian
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