Apple only allows good guys use Apple products
on TV or Movies!
PING!
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Posted on 03/03/2020 11:32:35 PM PST by Swordmaker
In an interview with Vanity Fair today, Rian Johnson, who directed the popular movie "Knives Out," shared an interesting tidbit about iPhone product placement deals for films. Apple, he says, allows iPhones to be used in movies, but bad guys aren't allowed to have iPhones on camera.
The relevant passage starts at 2:50 into the video
Also another funny thing, I don't know if I should say this or not... Not cause it's like lascivious or something, but because it's going to screw me on the next mystery movie that I write, but forget it, I'll say it. It's very interesting.
Apple... they let you use iPhones in movies but -- and this is very pivotal if you're ever watching a mystery movie - bad guys cannot have iPhones on camera.
So oh nooooooo, every single filmmaker that has a bad guy in their movie that's supposed to be a secret wants to murder me right now. Apple is known for having strict rules about how devices are used, portrayed, and photographed. As part of its guidelines for using Apple trademarks and copyrights, for example, Apple says that Apple products should only be shown "in the best light, in a manner or context that reflects favorably on the Apple products and on Apple Inc."
As noted by our forum members, people have in the past pointed out that it's the good guys that use Apple products in TV shows in movies. When "24" was on the air, Wired wrote about a fan theory that the good guys use Macs while the bad guys use PCs, which turned out to be accurate.
Given this tidbit from Johnson, who is a well-respected director, many people may be watching movies with a much keener eye on the devices that actors and actresses are using to suss out hidden details.
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> As part of its guidelines for using Apple trademarks and copyrights....
<
I guess I’m missing some thing here but that doesn’t make sense. If a movie company wants to use, say, a Ford car as a getaway car in a movie, they don’t have to get Ford’s permission to do so. Why then do they need to get Apple’s permission?
Is this somehow tied in with product placement fees?
I buy an apple phone. I make a movie in which the killer is holding the iphone I OWN. What can Apple do about that? Nothing.
If the killer drives an F-250 pickup in a movie. Can Ford sue?
You’ve got to remember, it’s all about endorsed product placements in movies. There’s a contract if your product is used in a movie. The producers make sure of that. Cars, soft drinks, candy (M&Ms are still kicking themselves over ET), and name brand computers and cellular phones. It’s all about advertising.
Watch and notice that Coke cans are always placed so the logo plainly is showing, if that is what is being pushed. Sometimes there is an oddly, but prominently placed soft drink machine you’d never see where it’s located in real life. Product placement. Or you’ll see too many of a particular restaurant chain’s signs. I recall one movie where Subway shops were everywhere. Actors were always having a Sub sandwich. Not too Sub-tle. Product Placement.
Even as early as the old Perry Mason shows in the early 60s there was an announcement in the credits that cars were provided by the Ford Motor Company. They sold a lot of Lincolns due to that. James Bond’s choices were big sellers too. . .
Apple has been KING of product placement for decades. . . It’s one of their primary ways of advertising. They aren’t blatant about it. You just see their products in movies being used. Dell does it too. Samsung tried to start doing it, but was really blatant about it.
Great analogy. Perhaps the car is less personal than the intimacy the phone is capable of providing?
Anyone that owns one of these POS support Apples sweatshop and Made in China iPhones, gg.
Uh, actually, they can. You may own the product, but you don’t own everything about or on it. They own the TradeMark on the Apple logo. You cannot show it in a commercial product without their permission. You’d need to license it for that purpose. It’s likely you’d be OK with doing it because Apple likes for their products to be in Movies, but you MIGHT get an order from their legal department to digitize the logo from appearing in the hands of the bad guy. They’d require you to blur or cut out the Apple logo in every scene where it appeared that was not incidental background. Background is fair game, but if you use it as a prop, you’re on the hook. it could wind up being an expensive fix.
You’ll probably find it in the fine print in the user licensing of every Apple consumer product.
Specific to using the Apple trade dress and Logo, you’ll find this:
4. Disparaging Manner: You may not use an Apple trademark or any other Apple-owned graphic symbol, logo, or icon in a disparaging manner.. . .
6. Merchandise Items: You may not manufacture, sell or give-away merchandise items, such as T-shirts and mugs, bearing Apple, Macintosh, iMac or any other Apple trademark, including symbols, logos, or icons, except pursuant to an express written trademark license from Apple.
Putting an iPhone with a logo appearing in the hands of a bad guy could be interpreted as a deliberately “disparaging manner.”
That last covers the requesting of permission to use their products in your production as a prop/phone/etc. Now, if you do request it, Apple doesn’t pay for such placement but does give out boxes of free Apple equipment in exchange to production companies so there is an advantage to do it.
You also see a lot of Apple and other makers’ gear with the logos covered up. The reason is the same. Here’s the explanation for that:
Sometimes car logos are covered or grayed out.
Actually, they do have to get Ford’s permission if that vehicle shows any Ford logo or model designation that is copyrighted or TradeMark registered. If they obscure those insignia, they don’t. If the car’s design itself is iconic, such that is recognized as a product only made by one maker, that may trigger a need for permission but usually not. . . Generally removing the insignia and makers’ name and model is sufficient, covering the badge on the grill etc. All the police cruiser Ford Crown Victoria’s on IDTV’s hit show Homicide Hunter, which use real working police cars, have obvious duct tape ovals plastered on the Ford badges on their grills for this reason. Dodge Ram Pickups used have a funny looking duct tape something or other where the ram logo is on where their badge is located. It’s amazing. Otherwise they have to pay a licensing fee, or face legal ramifications for using their trademarks and copyrights without permission.
Thanks for that info. I was not aware that trademark laws were so restrictive. I would have thought that if I had a Ford truck I’d be able to use it any way I wanted, logo and all.
You have no clue what you’re talking about. Apple provides a better working conditions environment and higher pay rate on its assembly lines than workers in the same factories on other contractors consumer electronics products by almost 50% by its contract with FoxConn.
FoxConn has over 600 other consumer electronics manufacturers with which it contracts to assemble their products and none of them monitors working conditions on their assembly lines as does Apple to assure compliance with working conditions and worker safety.
Here is a partial list of 71 of FoxConn's major brand customers I've been able to compile from news articles where their contractural relationships were mentioned over the past few years, and remember there are more than 500 more, including every other maker of computers and cellular phone you can name, including the ones you use, none of which do anything at all about the workers on their assembly lines:
Trademarks are very restricted and if the owner is not proactive, they can lose them. Look what happened to Kleenex, it’s Trademarked. But they had to battle for years to reclaim that brand name. . . Yet a dictionary still defines it as a generic term for a soft paper tissue for wiping one’s face or blowing one’s nose. Scotch Tape is another threatened brand. Duct Tape already lost long ago.
> Trademarks are very restricted... <
You saved me some grief. I’m in the middle of making a movie called “Driving Miss Hillary” - in it a group of BernieBots throw Hillary into the back of an old F150 and drive her to Venezuela.
I guess I’ll have to cover up all those Ford logos on the truck.
The PRC thanks you for your contributions yo. gg
Back in the 60s...all the Bond movies...the bad guys were the ones driving a black Mercedes.
Ford provided a fair amount of cars for QM shows in the 70s.
I always liked Cannon’s Lincoln.
Except for the one that was a drop in the ocean. It was Japan though.
Only because Soviets wouldn't allow them to use the Zil...
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