IIRC Orwell’s estate sued Apple over the 1984 commercial.
And every year at this time, Chicago lawyer Bill Coulson thinks about what’s wrong with that historical record and the ways he might try to correct it. The thoughts have a little extra urgency this year, with Orwell’s “1984” being widely reread by people who fear the worst about Donald Trump’s presidency.
Chicago attorney William Coulson has been working for years to set the record straight on Apple’s “1984” Super Bowl ad.
Chicago attorney William Coulson has been working for years to set the record straight on Apple’s “1984” Super Bowl ad. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Coulson’s specialty is intellectual property, and Apple, he has been on a lonely crusade to let people know, violated it by appropriating scenes and themes from Orwell’s novel for its own commercial purposes.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ct-apple-1984-ad-myths-ent-0205-20170201-column.html
How much of a brain-dead leftist does one have to be to associate 1984 with Trump, when Orwell says that Big Brother is the head of INGSOC, which he explicitly explains is Newspeak for “English Socialism”?
I really do hope some Trump haters read the book because they might get their eyes opened about how socialist societies work in practice.