Sony Behind Fake YouTube Viral Campaign

Wowzer writes "Sony is up to the same old tricks again. Following in the footsteps of their fake PSP Graffiti campaign, Sony has hired marketing company Zipatoni to set up a YouTube-based viral marketing scheme for the Sony PSP. The company did this by registering the domain alliwantforxmasisapsp. There are no disclaimers to show it isn't 'real', but the website's whois points out it's setup by Zipatoni." From the C&VG article: "The lies don't end there, fake comments have been posted at Kotaku only linking to the Youtube video to increase its pageviews: 'Good call on DJ max. Regarding music: if changes were to be made for westerners, this guy should be considered - LOLZ'" Update: 12/13 02:37 GMT by Z : The Washington Post has an article stating that the FTC will look into situations like this, if they perchance to come up.

Comments

Re:It's called Marketing

[erroneus]

I think every form of advertising needs to express that it is an ad. There has been much discussion about fake or otherwise paid 'news stories' during normal news broadcasts. This falls within that classification in my opinion. If it purports to be genuinely fan-based and is not, it's a lie -- just as when news media purports to be presenting a product endorsement as a genuine "unbiased news item."

When information is presented, it should be cited when there are profit-based slants involved. I don't want to say there should be a law about it, but in some cases, there are already laws about it. But basically, I believe that if companies have a right to sue and use legal intimidation to slap down critics and even genuine fan-based media, then the public should also have a right to be informed when they are being fed a load of crap generated by marketers and advertisers. I would only consider that to be fair and balanced.

Did Sony release the symbols to public domain?

[ReallyEvilCanine]

In the "blog" Sony paid for (and condoned) is the following:

don't just wear it - pwn it!!1!

<pictures snipped>

step 1: download the iron-on patterns sheet
step 2: print
step 3: cut out pieces you want on your t
step 3: iron on
step 4: wear it like u mean it

No terms. No requirements. No restrictions. No demands. No disclaimers. Anyone who understands "pwn it!!1!" can easily claim that Sony paid a company to expressly promote and authorise the free use of any and all trademarked symbols, none of which display a trademark symbol in the PDFs, for their own purposes regardless of what they might be. That is pwnage.