Graffiti vandals go online

["Proceed" <proceed@ozemail.com.au>]

Source: Daily Telegraphy (www.news.com.au)

POLICE have been called to investigate a graffiti website being run out of
Sydney University which encourages vandals to attack CityRail trains and
stations.

The website includes several online picture galleries of train carriages and
railway stations which have been trashed by graffiti vandals.
It also features a map of the CityRail network which identifies every
station in the rail system and a CityRail logo which, when clicked, leads
directly to CityRail's own site.

The website is run out of Sydney University's architecture department but
its creators are not named.

The featured artists also use pseudonyms, or tags, such as Easy, Jels,
Lewps, Mesh One and Scorn to hide their identities.

CityRail is furious that its logo and station map are being used on the
website.

Spokesman John Lee said the site not only breached copyright, but was
effectively encouraging vandalism by giving graffiti "artists" ready access
to the station map to help them target trains.

Mr Lee said CityRail acting chief executive Ron Christie had written to
police asking them to investigate the site and identify its creators.

He had also written to Sydney University asking them to remove the site from
their server.

"We are very concerned about this site," Mr Lee said.

"It is not the sort of message that we want out there given the terrible
cost to taxpayers from this sort of vandalism."

He said graffiti vandalism against CityRail property cost taxpayers $10
million a year.

CityRail also spent $600,000 each month on security for trains, keeping them
inaccessible overnight to prevent vandalism.

Mr Lee said CityRail was struggling in its battle against the vandals, with
its database recording 20,000 "hits" against carriages in the past 18
months.

In one incident last week vandals did an estimated $4000 damage in just
three minutes to a train at Martin Place, spraying every carriage window and
panel as the train sat at the platform.

A Sydney University spokesman said the university was investigating whether
the site was "an authorised site".

The site also contains links to more than 30 other graffiti sites, around
half of them in Australia and the remainder in London, New York and Los
Angeles. The site says it aims to promote "Australian art".

It also carries the caveat that the creators of the site "take no
responsibility for the work that is published upon this site".

"The site makes no moral judgment upon the occurrence or location of related
acts and seeks only to promote a subculture that is so lacking in today's
society."

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What do you all think about this?

Thomas