Intellectual Property Law

Clear Channel: Digital Billboards Rented, Not Hacked

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

Checkbook culture jamming on display above a Marina Del Rey donut shop.
Photo: Mike Fischer

The Los Angeles street artist known as Skullphone managed to get his iconic skull-holding-a-cellphone image to display on 10 prominent digital billboards throughout Los Angeles last week -- leading some blogs to report that he'd hacked into the signs.

Alas, Clear Channel Outdoors, which owns the billboards, says no. "He paid to get it up," says spokeswoman Jennifer Gery. "It only ran for two days."

Update: Clear Channel's Tony Alwin is unhappy about the hacking rumors. "The advertisement was bought under the assumption that it was art that was in an art show," he says. "Any claims about hacking into our systems is false. It's a lie, even."

Full post as published by Threat Level on March 26, 2008 (boomark / email).