You clearly know what you are doing, very imaginative.

EPIC FAIL.

Not that Green Day have actually done this in person, no, instead they have paid someone to do the “graffiti” for them. And they haven’t come up with anything edgy, they have just paid to have the Green Day album cover for 21st Century Breakdown reproduced. A pretty straightforward way of achieving free (or close to free )advertising in a cool urban setting. Or so someone obviously thinks.

According to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, Warner Music’s defense is that it paid someone who they thought had permission to do so, a “legal graffiti” company who can paint in designated spots. That is, they thought that a company has rights to spray paint ads on Sydney’s walls and to spray stencils on skate parks.

You have to wonder at this. Right or wrong the argument for legal graffiti locations is that if Council designates spots where graffiti is allowed it will not only encourage graffiti with a higher aesthetic value it will also lower the incidence of graffiti on other locations where it defaces public and private property.

Councils do not allocate designated locations for graffiti so multi millionaire bands can advertise their albums on them.

And is it possible that anyone with any common sense thought otherwise? If it is legal to spray paint your advertising message all over the streets of Sydney why isn’t everyone doing it? With the economic downturn there are any number of companies that are struggling to make budget and marketing budgets are getting squeezed. If this was legal every marketer worth their salt would be in on the act.

If Warner Music had bought eight standard inner city billboard locations across Sydney the cost would be in excess of $200,000 a month. One suspects that the “legal graffiti” company isn’t being paid $200,000. And one also suspects that the “legal graffiti” company isn’t passing on any of the money it collected from Warner Music to the City of Sydney or Waverley Council.

If Waverley Council and the City of Sydney don’t have an express prohibition on this use of designated graffiti areas for third party advertising could they please let us know. We would also very much like to use a spray can on the streets of Sydney to promote our website and we promise to be arty when doing so.

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/512410/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.....iour_Order

yes, there is a code of conduct on the streets between people who put up posters, and graffiti artists. it’s an unwritten law.

Rule #2 : Don’t put a poster over a poster that still has a current date. You must wait till the date has past till covering up a poster.

although in Sydney, this doesn’t apply. London is a much better city for this. Lots of opportunity.

My own personal tip is to ride a push bike, therefore you can outrun cops on foot, and go where cars can’t go. That rule has saved me many ASBO’s

It’s not just about saying ‘Oh, it’s only a chalk stencil, it will wash off’ – it’s about not defacing streets and walls and buildings in the first place.

The councils should totally slam these wankers for every dollar they can, AND order the agency to remove the graffiti – which would be great footage for the evening news, as part of the council’s effort to make sure the fine and clean-up it becomes news in order to shame both the agency and the client.

On the other side it’s a shame that bill postering and chalking are seen as graffiti and punishable by law. Sydney is claiming that it wants more cultural draw but these laws strips color and culture from the city