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.
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: