So it's a little hard to argue that the filmmakers are exploiting the Apple brand for profit. Or abusing the trademark, since the filmmakers aren't in any way claiming the brand belongs to them. Nor could it be convincingly argued that the use of an Apple product by a Bad Guy damages the brand's image. In fact, 90 percent of the audience probably wouldn't even be able to identify the manufacturer.
Do you seriously think anyone is going to say "Nope, I will never buy a Macbook because I saw a movie once where a crook used one to hack into a bank's security system"?
I don’t. But it’s not my call. Marketing is not something I’ve been involved in for that deeply, but there is most likely a foundation of psychological Basis behind it based on studies about audience reactions. Perhaps it’s only some marketing guy’s gut instinct. Who knows. It’s in the licensing. But it is more about how a trademark owner chooses to allow their product to be presented.
This isn't about the value of Apple's crap versus other manufacturers. It's about the right of people who buy a product to use that product as they see fit. Showing an Apple logo in a move hardly constitutes an endorsement or critique of the company, and I doubt anyone is going to see a movie just because the characters -- good or bad -- occasionally use Apple products.
And, no, your rights to use that device is not everything. . . because technically, you don’t even 100% own it. Every tech product you buy comes with some constraints on how you may use it because you are licensing its use. You don’t own everything in that CE product, especially the intellectual property included with it. That you only license a limited use under specific conditions. Even Apple doesn’t own everything in the devices they sell and license to you. Apple is licensing about 2,500 different patents from the patent owners who receive a royalty from Apple so YOU can use their intellectual property. Such products as cellular phones are, shall we say, complicated. I bet you didn’t read the user agreement when you got your last cellular phone, computer, etc, did you? My guess is fewer than one in one-thousand people do.
So it's a little hard to argue that the filmmakers are exploiting the Apple brand for profit. Or abusing the trademark, since the filmmakers aren't in any way claiming the brand belongs to them. Nor could it be convincingly argued that the use of an Apple product by a Bad Guy damages the brand's image. In fact, 90 percent of the audience probably wouldn't even be able to identify the manufacturer.
I bet you stand up and walk out of the movie theater without reading the credits, too. You don’t notice the names of the production company attorneys listed in the credits now, do you, especially the ones usually listed specifically for such things as liability and product placement. Oh, they’re there. They’re there because what you just dismissed out of ignorance matters. Should it? I wish it didn’t, but that’s even above the pay grade I used to draw when I hired attorneys to be on my staff to advise me on such matters. It is what it is in our over lawyer saturated society.
The problem is that ignorant assumptions like your’s gets one hauled into court at the wrong end of a lawsuit. . .