August 22, 2005
Court To Decide on Graffiti Party
U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff will hear Marc Ecko's lawsuit against the city today at 3PM. Ecko sued NYC last week because his permit for a party where graffiti artists would decorate fake subway cars (we're talking facades of subway cars) was revoked over concerns that the party would encourage graffiti. Newsday has an interesting excahnge from Friday's court hearing:
Paula van Meter, a city attorney, argued in court that painting subway replicas is not protected speech because it "necessarily simulates a criminal act."Totally! Taggers are the Jets and Sharks of this century! Or something. The graffiti party was scheduled for this Wednesday, to celebrate Ecko's new Atari video game, Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. Ecko will be arriving at the courthouse at 500 Pearl Street at 2:15PM.Rakoff responded skeptically, asking whether the city would block a sidewalk performance of the Leonard Bernstein musical "West Side Story" because it deals with gang activity.
Newsday's Ray Sanchez has a column about the whole dust-up; our favorite line is this one from Mark Ecko, "This is an awakening for me. I didn't even know who Peter Vallone was."
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With that logic, should we ban all movies that have explosions and guns because they "necessarily simulate a criminal act"? This is going to get laughed out of court. The city has no case.
s/excahnge/exchange/
hey reality check. SHould we not ban a simulated ku klux clan rally in the middle of harlem. Or a dragging of an african american. sure it's offensive but it should be protected under free speech too right? we should let it all go down. fucking grafitti! I fucking hate grafitti! someone should graffitti marc ecko's establishments with big pictures of my little pony and shit all over his stupid "urban" ass.
Getting a bit too immature are we.
In response to the eloquent comment from "jizzbomb"--
The Supreme Court has held up the right for the KKK to say what they want, regardless of how terrible it is. Free speech is all-encompassing, which means that occasionally people will say things that offend us.
Now if the KKK actually acts on what they say, that's a different story. That's a crime. But to talk about it and have faux displays of it is not a crime, no matter how unfortunate the message is.
The graffiti artists aren't vandalizing. They are painting on their own canvas. The canvas happens to resemble a subway car. The government cannot legally shun free speech based on the shape of the artists' canvas.
To summarize, the city revoked the permit based on opinions that weren't grounded in actual law. That's why they have no case.
Interesting art.
nice graffiti.
Forget the Art Vs Vandalism fight, this all comes down to "Will this cause the people to go out before and after the event and do criminal acts based on what went on at the event, the answer, whether you want to believe it or not is yes. Every time one of these events gets put on, the graffiti vandals cannot stop themselves from going out and vandalizing the property around the event. This is what the Supreme Court deemed could be stopped, "producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action" Now if this event does not fall into this category, nothing does. This is the same type of problem that Atari's Grand Theft Auto is running into, except that in this case, the vandalism is even more "imminent"
All that matters here to Echo, is that he makes some money from the Getting Up game that Atari is promoting. This event WILL cause a large increase in graffiti to occur around the event, and we feel the rights of law Abiding Citizens to not have their property vandalized should take precedence over Atari's and Echo's need to make a dollar.....
Randy Campbell
so, randy, is it the american way to deny constitutional rights before anybody does anything wrong?
So in other words, REALITY CHECK would support KKK members first amendment rights to hang black effigies in harlem as long as it wouldn't harm anyone. But their message would get out loud and clear wouldn't it.
JIZZBOMB said "someone should graffitti marc ecko's establishments with big pictures of my little pony and shit all over his stupid "urban" ass."
I can guaruntee you, Marc would laugh his ass off if someone did this to his to anything he owns, including his "urban" ass. You're a quíker.
and to Randy Campbell, it's E-C-K-O not E-C-H-O, and on top of that, you must not be familiar with New York City, because not oonly is there graff everywhere, but regardless of this particular event, kids are going to find the urge with in them to put their name up no matter what. Cornbread, Freedom, and Taki 183 didn't have an organized, city sanctioned block party before they thought of tagging public property with their name, on some "i was here" "I'm part of this chaos" type $hit. That's a fire that has burned in every person since the dawn of humanity, it just manifests itself in different ways in different people. Just because you're salty that your version of expressiing yourself and leaving your mark is confined to the boundaries or the status quo and you've been convinced that you should be scared of what you don't "get" doesn't mean it's void of legitemacy. If you even understood a portion of what the graf culture was about you might have a slightly different view, but you gotta let go of big brother's pecker first. Remember "no means no!"
They should move graffitti up to a minimum 10 year sentance or $25,000 fine. Defacing property should not be glamorized.
^^^
"They" should have Napalm Death be required listening for preschoolers accros the nation.
hate what you can't put a price tag on.
"know your history. this thing we do iz a beautiful thing. keep it that way, and all of its purity." once said by iz the wiz king
the toyz are going too crazy!
Le pays de la liberté !! ha ha ha
mann this grill is real tight how you got it you should go get me one mail it to me at anytime
aight.... for u bitch ass haters postin comments and shit talkin bad graffiti....... fuck u... who the fuck are u to say we cant graffiti..... mark echoe is a king of the streets for his mad styles and sick writing..... yall aint shit, u fuckerz have a limited amount of expression for yo shit..... and if we had places to do it then maybe u wouldnt see it everywhere....... and someone should fuckin grab a spray can and spray ur wallz fofur room..... its freedom of expression and graff never hurt anybody......
ay yo jizzbomb..... open up ur mind...... u sound like a close minded asshole..... talkin ur kkk bullshit... graff is art, not murder.
I grew up around a bunch of taggers during the mid 80's. Yea Yea tagging doesn't hurt anybody and I think good work should be displayed, I think people are concerned over the fuck retard wanna be taggers that just write on shit cause they think they are cool.. When in reality they are fucking losers. I'm all for creative Art including tagging but make sure you have permission to tag on the canvas you choose to use. Come on seriously just because you like it doesn't mean the rest of the world should be subject to dealing with it. Mark Filed a lawsuit in Denver today, Unlike NYC Denver doesn't have a major tagging issue and I think that's a great thing. No matter what side you're on. Tagging in public is illegal and I think it should carry extreme fines but on the same note some of the best art I've seem has been created by a spray can!
writers will be writers. lawsuits, fines , and penalties still cant stop graff.
cant stop, wont stop, non-stop.
WeRk
"I grew up around a bunch of taggers during the mid 80's."
-Who Gives a Shit
^^ No you didnt.... get the lingo down before you act like you know what your talking about.
yo if the gov supports me i tag some pony shit to that fucking wiger it was a good tho
DAMN.. It's a damn shame that some of these people here post shit just to make an argument..but some people talk real shit.. LOOK for some of you people that dont know... GRAFFITI has been around for years, GRAFFITI IS EVERYWHERE YOU GO!!! its all over the world.. GO to England and its there, people from the states go there to tag up so they can get seen..ITS EVERYWHERE YOU GO... writers are NOT gonna stop what they do best.. dont get me wrong theres people out there that do it because they think its cool ( AND THEY WORK IS WHACK)!!!, theres writers that do for a career, theres writers that do it because its an art to them.. if you actually separte the people that do it because it actually means something to them rather then people that do it just because THEY CAN TO WRITE ON SHIT... I think that it would be looked upon as something diffrent.. I THINK THAT THE PEOPLE THAT TALK IGNORANT ABOUT IT JUST DONT KNOW ENUFF TO BACK UP TO WHAT GRAFFITI REALLY IS!!! :)
P.S. SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO RESPOND :(