Sony's wall art scorned as a blight on cities

The murals that cover the walls and buildings of Philadelphia are famous across the United States. There are images of Frank Sinatra; a painting of baseball great, Jackie Robinson, sliding in to the home plate.

So when Sony decided to add to the city's art with a supposedly edgy advertising campaign for its new PlayStation Portable - a games system that can be unplugged and played anywhere - it received a chilly welcome. In San Francisco and New York, the campaign, which involved painting graffiti-style caricatures on walls and buildings, was attacked by graffiti artists as corporate phonyism. "Get out of my city," wrote one.

But nowhere has the reaction been more angry than in Philadelphia, where city officials say Sony has broken local licensing laws and hampered long-running efforts to tackle graffiti and urban blight.

Mary Tracy, head of Scrub, the Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight, told the Philadelphia Enquirer: "It's not mural art. This is someone trying to sell a product. You have a multi-conglomerate operation coming into the city and breaking our laws."

Tracy said the images had only been painted in inner city areas and not wealthier suburbs. "These are poor neighbourhoods. The whole notion that if it's urban, it's okay, is very arrogant and very disrespectful," she said.

Sony failed to obtain permission from Philadelphia authorities to use buildings.

Philadelphia managing director Pedro Ramos said he had sent a cease-and-desist letter to Sony Computer Entertainment's US division in San Mateo, California. The city may seek to enforce fines or to sue Sony to recover any profits that its campaign has produced.

The Sony images in Philadelphia show black and white cartoon characters riding on the new PlayStation as if it were a skateboard or else licking it like a lollipop. Nowhere is Sony's name mentioned.

- INDEPENDENT