this ad campaign has definitely failed to hit homie...they seem to be painted over/blotted out altered all over the mission.

In your face, Sony! As if rootkit wasn't hurting their rep enough.

"Sony is now sponsoring a "guerrilla" graffiti ad campaign to promote the PSP, covering inner city neighborhoods with images of kids playing with its overpriced, crippled handheld."

Yeah, because all companies TAKE A LOSS everytime their 'overpriced' handheld is sold. Good thinking, jackass.

But funny tags. Catchy poem.

thats right sony! when you say no homebrew you killed yourself! And spraypaint ads are NOT going to help you!

Awesome campaign! I feel like getting a PSP now. Hip + great graphics and great games.

I don't see why everyone is coming down on Sony for this ad campaign. It's just another way to market a product. Using graffiti artists to market it's actually a pretty decent idea, in lieu of hanging posters all over the city. I think it's kinda cool. It's not "disrespecting" anyone. Who does it harm? Give Sony their right to freedom of speech, just like the rest of us. At least companies are coming up with creative ways to market products instead of just jamming it down our throat.

Why?! Becuase its VANDALISM

The reason is that after their illegal and ridiculously mistrustful actions, they go ahead and try once again this time in promotion to illegally cover street walls in crap. I now completely hate Sony and will never buy their products again(i have also experienced their products to break soon after warranty runs out)

i really hate sony now. install root kits and vandalize

Ryan, the first time I saw one of these on Valencia street I cringed. I actually felt sad. I don't feel so sad anymore seeing these.

You can try and co-opt our passion to increase your company's bottom line, but you suck for trying and we can hate you for it!

Babylonian - Your point is well taken on "overpriced." I neglected to say that they were beautiful.

Ted - Nice to see you around these parts! Someone wrote back to the Zeitgeist images, see the photos on Monday on Wired News.

Funny thing is that since this post went up, I've done a bit of reporting on this story, which you wil find in Wired News on Monday.

There's more of a question in my mind now about whether Sony crossed a line, but certainly from the Digg responses, much of the leeway Sony would have had several months ago is gone, thanks to the rootkit fiasco.

Sony better be paying advertising fee's to all the owners of the buildings they defaced

That graffiti says "teabag a mime" like it's a bad thing.

Ok. That's it.

I'm boycotting Sony for the rest of my life.

Sony didn't organize this, DS fanboys did. Bright crowd you are.
Thus the "Fony Paystation" Signature. :-P

Damn shitty thing to do, covering peoples walls with crap just to make a buck.
As if there wasn't enough grafitti junk in the first place. I hope they get ordered to clean this up and pay the bill.

What evidence is there that it was Sony who told them to do these pictures? It repeatedly says that they were "hired" by Sony or their ad agency, but what supporting source is there for this? Says who?
Reference your claims, or don't complain when you get done for libel.

Hi - My name is Tommy "Horseonovich" Culligan. I don't support Sony for several reasons. For one, they are from Japan, and I think we should all buy American when possible, to help out the local workers. Two - I am not what you would call an "attractive" person, being circumferencially challenged and of bad complexion. I resent how Sony only uses attractive people in their advertising. What about normal people, people who are not beautiful, or may be obese, or otherwise unpleasant? I am proud, though perhaps repulsive to some people who can only see beauty as thin and not pockmarked. If you agree, I would like to chat - shoot me an email or just Google "Horseonovich" to lean more about me and my stand for the "ugly" people. Thanks,

Tommy

If Sony is behind this, which even without sources I find it hard to believe that something this widespread is a coincidence, who's to say they haven't paid advertising fees? Who's to say they didn't pay artists as well as building owners to put up their advertising on my wall. Maybe the people defacing the Sony ads are the ones defacing property and acting outside of the law. Graffiti in and of itself is not illegal, putting it somewhere without permission is illegal. If I owned a store and a company wanted to pay me to put up and advertisement on my wall in the form of graffiti, I'd do it. Assuming I didn't mind what was being advertised who cares. It's money and that tends to rule this world.

Estel and Jenova,

You are absolutely right to question whether this is Sony or not, and whether Sony is paying to use the walls.

But I have talked with the company, and can say that Sony is responsible for the campaign and theyBut are paying building owners or renters for the right to spraypaint on the side of the buildings. They are also hiring local artists to do the spraying.

Find out more in my story for Wired News on Monday.

wow you guys are so fucking stupid its amazing. you really think sony, a MULTI BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY, would do something illegal like vandalize which would bring an incredible amount of bad reputation to their professionalism.

what do people do when they want to put a poster for their product on a wall? they pay the owner of the wall, its the same thing HERE, but they PAINT over it in the end, instead of pulling the poster down.

if you dont believe me first article here:
http://psp-spot.com/

TAT CRU admits sony paid him, and the legality of it.

oh and tommy, good reply :)

on second thought i really dont know if Tommy's post was a joke... if it isnt that is just sad, if it is, it made me laugh

In most jurisdictions, defacing someone else's property with graffiti is a misdemeanor, but conspiracy to commit a crime, even a misdemeanor, is a felony. This is something that our local district attorneys and state attorneys general should be prosecuting. It would be interesting to see Sony execs and those of their advertising agencies on trial for this.

Alot of you are incredibly thick and need to read the comments, SONY PAYED THE OWNERS OF THESE WALLS TO ADVERTISE, so therefore how is it illegal?

The retards slashing it and making it look so much worse are the criminals.

ITS NOT ILLIGAL GRAFFITI. many of you seem to be predisposed to graffiti as a 100% illigal thing. there is much more legal graffiti than you think. do sum homework on it, ull see that a lot of graffiti artists are commisioned to do graffiti by business owners and propetry owners. sony obviosly paid the store owners off so they adverdtise on thier buildings. The guy who everidently did the art "Tats Cru" has been around the block a few times. Hes a famed writer who knows whats what. As far as I'm concerned, hes jsut tryin to get paid like the rest of us

Seeing this makes me want to buy a bicykle, not a psp. i think i'm going to buy a new bike next week. My old ones is busted =(

Have any of you looked at the other side of the box? Maybe it wasn't even $ony, maybe it was a corparation that wanted to outsale $ony for once by making it look bad??? such as micro$oft or nintendo. You never know these artist may think that there check is coming from sony but in actuality it's from Micro$oft. It is around the time for their 360 launch....

You can add Atlanta to that list of cities. These are appearing on a bridge frequented by spraypaint artists in between the trendy intown neighborhoods of Inman Park and Cabbagetown known as "Krog Bridge". The actual owners of the bridge is CSX, which operates a HUGE railyard in these neighborhoods and this bridge is part of the yard.

I'll give my dimes to Nintendo

Atlanta also has the Sony PSP ads on the side of The E.A.R.L. in the East Atlanta Village (previously a sneaky Time-Warner ad for Aqua Teen Hunger Force on Cartoon Network was there). A big wall of PSP children, faced by another wall on the other side of the parking lot with Toyota (if I remember correctly) graffiti and, on the wall on the other side of that, a graffiti Blue Cross, Blue Shield of Georgia advertisement (no joke - _health insurance_ graffiti!). This isn't just Sony. It's a major new marketing trend...

PSP rules!

To "SONY PAYED THE OWNERS OF THESE WALLS TO ADVERTISE" & "ITS NOT ILLIGAL GRAFFITI":

Are the owners protected by free speech laws? For example, do you have a problem with a company painting a giant swastica on the front of their building? Where do you draw the line and who gets to decide? How about the neighbors that are being innundated with these messages on a daily basis...they have no say??

Also, I wonder what criteria was used to select the neighborhoods suitable for this marketing campaign? I have not seen any reports that Pacific Heights or Nob Hill had gotten targeted with any graffiti. Those kids don't play video games?

In what way is graffiti worse than an advertising poster? Whether illegal or not, is it any worse to look at a painted advert than it is to look at a printed one? At least the artists were local.

Furthermore, no-one seems to realise that the part of Sony that does marketing probably has very little to do with the part of Sony that designed the PSP, just as the part of Daewoo that makes cars has very little to do with the part of Daewoo that makes assault rifles. In all likelihood, both have just as little to do with the part of Sony that put rootkits in the latest popstrosities. Refusing to buy any Sony anything on the basis of a daft decision in advertising (debateably daft, at any rate - any publicity is good publicity, after all) is not the most joined-up thinking.

But, by all means, shun Sony advertising, if you have any chance to. Better yet, shun all advertising and make your own mind up about stuff.

my first thought was that sony didn't write SONY or any URL under the drawings because the drawings were illegal, and by not attributing them to any company, they were clean. But then, finding out that Sony actually goes public on this campaign, admiting the involvement and paying advertising fees to the building owners...it is quite confusing, because it makes you think... why didn't the write SONY if they admit they ordered the campaing. It's a bit bizarre to me:)

yoz: I think Sony understood that if they initially took credit for these advertisements, they would have immediately gotten called out on it. Hopefully, their brandalism will ultimately backfire...

http://base.google.com/base/items?oid=3185414395978704922

"you really think sony, a MULTI BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY, would do something illegal" - Ryan.

Oh you sweet innocent. (sigh) Not "fucking stupid" mate, just better informed. The Sony XCP rootkit is *without any doubt* deliberate and criminally illegal at least in Italy, the UK and Australia (Cybercrime Act, Crimes Act, Telecommunications Act, Privacy Act, &c) - a "serious" crime pulling 10 years in the slammer for Sony BMG COO Smellie. Then there is the small matter of the *copyright* LAME code they *stole* to build it, also illegal under your DMCA I think.

See;
http://member.telpacific.com.au/rolyroper/legal.htm
for links.

I love and photograph street art and this prostitution just sucks big time. Touch an ad agency billboard and see how fast the cops slam down on you. Screw Sony.

This is hilarious! I don't really like the PSP but this is not going to stop me from buying their products. I just really hate the people who are saying things like "The PSP is for older gamers! DS's are for like, 10 year olds." The only people who like PSP's are posers, who think buying one will make them cool, and buying a DS will make them immature.