9 ms·
Apple wont let bad guys use iPhones in movies, director says
- chillingeffect 7y agohow can a company prevent people from making movies with their products in it? if I sell someone a $x, can I sue someone if it appears in their movie?
- meddlepal 7y agoIf it's a product placement contract with the studio then it can just be written into the contract.
- wlesieutre 7y agoNot to my understanding, but every phone in a movie is an opportunity to sell product placement, and if Apple's agreement says "good guys only" then you're either stuck with that, or you don't agree to it. You could give a bad guy an iPhone for $1000, but you might rather have Motorola pay you to use their phone instead.
- wolco 7y agoGood guys use Motorola in that case.
- NieDzejkob 7y agoI'd imagine trademarks play a role.
- gowld 7y agoTrademarks do not prevent people from using or commenting on products. Trademarks exist to prevent confusion about which products are really produced by the brand owner, not to prevent honest depictions. It might come in to play if you show a trademark while doing something that the trademarked object cannot do.
- barrkel 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22436271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22436271 If a character tastes sauce X, and sauce X's logo is displayed prominently, and the character shows disgust for sauce X, it could be misrepresentation of the product. Look at it the other way around, as anti-advertising: what would stop competitors buying negative coverage, negative placement if you will, against the trademark?
- thaumasiotes 7y agoNothing stops that; negative coverage of trademarks is fine. There's no distinction between positive advertising and negative advertising.
- mongol 7y agoNot sure how that works. If the director wants the crook to have an Iphone, how can Apple prevent this? I assume they will not sponsor the movie, but it is not in their power to disallow it, certainly?
- dangus 7y agoI would guess by preventing the use of the Apple logo and/or copyrighted/trademarked user interface elements and icons.
- dubcanada 7y agoI assume you must have some form of approval if it is a central part of the movie. I assume companies can say, no random director you cannot use a Microsoft Surface to nuke the world. There must be something about it showcasing a product in a negative light.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- adaisadais 7y agoNo bad guys in the movies but bad guys in real life can use them. Nice.
- snek 7y agoadd this to the list of things I wish I could unlearn
- _vertigo 7y agoI haven't seen the movie but was planning to - is this a spoiler? Does this mean when I watch the movie and see that a character has an iPhone, I know that they're not the real killer?
- taeric 7y agoPretty sure this was a thing in the 24 series. One of the good characters oddly did not use a Mac like all of the others. Yeah, bad person.
- jandrese 7y agoPeople were watching for it and noticed when someone in the organization suddenly switched to using a Dell, only to reveal their heel turn a couple of episodes later. I recall that for an organization devoted to counter-terrorism, they seemed to have a policy of only hiring undercover terrorists.
- marcosdumay 7y ago> I recall that for an organization devoted to counter-terrorism, they seemed to have a policy of only hiring undercover terrorists. So, realistic?
- slg 7y agoDo you really want an answer to that question if you are trying to avoid spoilers for the movie? Right now, you don't know whether it is a spoiler or not. It is Scrodinger's spoiler. Why open the box and risk finding a dead cat?
- wolfpwner 7y agoDanny Trejo will be using Huawei phones from now on.
- mcphage 7y agoApple probably should include an exception that Danny Trejo can use whatever he wants. He’s earned it :-)
- BearOso 7y agoI dunno. In Knives Out the whole family was toxic, so I think Rian Johnson got around this rule with ambiguity.
- logfromblammo 7y agoOr maybe Apple doesn't have a problem with douchey racist rich folk using their brand, per se, so long as they don't try to pin their attempted patricide (avucide?) on a servant.
- austincheney 7y agoI suspect this behavior occurs due to product placement. Apple pays movies and television to prominently feature its products. Apple products do not appear on screen by accident. Apple pays for them to appear. Also, then, there is incentive for screen production to never display Apple products on screen without a contract knowing Apple will pay money to ensure their products do appear. I suspect Apple includes this limitation in their contracts.
- gowld 7y agoThe old rumor is that Apple doesn't pay for placement but others do.
- raverbashing 7y agoThat's pretty much it If anyone is curious about some of the details https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNuGdv536mM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNuGdv536mM (starts around 2min in)
- i1856511 7y agoIs there evidence to suggest the product placement is paid? I had always heard that Apple does not do this, and that the products are simply in the media due to the director's choice. But that's what Apple would want me to think!
- RandallBrown 7y agoIf you watch any of the AppleTV+ shows that are set in modern times, they all have iPhones, Macs, and lots of other Apple stuff. Not sure if it's "paid" product placement or just part of the contract for being on AppleTV+, but it can't be a coincidence. In Mythic Quest, there's a scene where you can see some iOS code on one of the screens. (Which wouldn't be that odd for a MMORPG game, except that it's code for controlling the camera.)
- bhj 7y agoRazer laptops also make a surprising number of appearances in Mythic Quest, to their credit. I didn't catch if there was promotional consideration, but either way, it's a great show.
- kempbellt 7y agoInteresting that they have any say at all
- dewey 7y agoThis only applies if there's a product placement deal in place. If you just use it for free there's probably not much they can do.
- djhworld 7y agoThere was a time in racing/car based video games where a lot of licensed vehicles could only suffer superficial damage in the game, due to onerous policies like this. Its look hilarious when you crashed into a wall at 120mph and drove off with just a scratch on the paint and a bit of windshield damage
- manfredo 7y agoApparently this is the main reason why Burnout games had fictional cars.
- Cyph0n 7y agoIsn't it the same for GTA?
- sybarita 7y agowith GTA i imagine there's also the consideration that these brands don't want their cars to be seen used in drive-by's and robberies. if they're sensitive enough to not want to see cars damaged they'd prob have a problem with images of their cars running down prostitutes on the street lol
- driverdan 7y agoMany movies do this too. Transporter 2 is a great example. In The Transporter all of the cars sustain significant damage. There were no vehicle brand deals. Audi provided the vehicles for Transporter 2. They didn't even get scratched.
- dfox 7y agoI noticed interesting and opposite pattern in various TV shows: when somebody drives a Tesla then he is at least morally shady if not outright bad guy. And it looks like that is intentional.
- i1856511 7y agoI've noticed this true, but the same could typically be said for Mercedes Benz and BMW. I think it's less Tesla specifically and more "murdered out luxury car".
- dfox 7y agoOften the show goes out of its way to somehow emphasize that it is a Tesla (shot of door handles popping out, namedropping in dialog...), I haven't noticed that so much for other luxury brands.
- riazrizvi 7y agoThere’s a political drive to force Apple to provide encryption back doors on every phone, an argument = you can’t have privacy anymore because bad guys now exist. So I think this is a good move by Apple. I don’t want an uninformed and propagandized public from electing someone who takes away privacy because some producers want to collect that data-gathering lobby money for their movie. EDIT: Here’s some research on how lobbying works in Hollywood: https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/17/5/313 https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/17/5/313
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Zenst 7y agoIs this in the terms and conditions for Apple products?
- epriest 7y agoThe title claim is untrue and trivially falsifiable, but I haven't seen any articles that have actually made an effort to verify it. Here are screens from two recent movies where villainous characters use iPhones: https://productplacementblog.com/movies/apple-iphone-smartphone-used-by-ben-mckenzie-in-line-of-duty-2019/ https://productplacementblog.com/movies/apple-iphone-smartph... https://productplacementblog.com/movies/apple-iphone-4s-smartphone-in-hustlers-2019/ https://productplacementblog.com/movies/apple-iphone-4s-smar...
- jweir 7y agoCan products even be protected in this manner? This seems way outside the scope of copyright protections and seems entirely wrong, but IANAL. Can anyone add some background to this that is? edit: barrkel posts a comment that links and explains the Trademark law around this. search for it and upvote!
- jordigh 7y agoLogos and names are trademarked, not copyrighted. Theoretically, Apple could sue if they could argue that their trademark is being used in a way that could deceive consumers. That's the test for trademark infringement: would a reasonable person think that you are passing off a trademark as your own product? But you don't need permission to say or use trademarks in a movie. Josie and the Pussycats is a famous example: they used a ton of trademarks to make it look like product placement, where in reality they weren't paid for all of the trademarks they used (nor did any of the named brands complain): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josie_and_the_Pussycats_(film)#Production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josie_and_the_Pussycats_(film)...
- epriest 7y agoI found this article on this topic from a lawfirm specializing in entertainment law interesting: https://rodriqueslaw.com/blog/how-use-brands-and-products-film https://rodriqueslaw.com/blog/how-use-brands-and-products-fi... It references some of the existing caselaw. My reading suggests Apple would be very unlikely to succeed in court if they legally challenged a filmmaker for simply giving an iPhone to a villainous character.
- Zenst 7y agoWon't this spoil many films? By that I mean it will act as a spoiler - see a charter without an iPhone and you can presume that they are a bad guy/gal and with that spoil a plot twist later on. Equally, if they do have one, you know that they are a good guy/gal till the end!
- Pigo 7y agoIn my experience most people who use iphones are at least a little bad. It definitely puts a check in the "I probably won't like this person" column.
- SeanFerree 7y agoTypical Apple
- nathankunicki 7y agoI think this policy has existed for almost 20 years now. I remember in earlier seasons of 24, all good guys used Macs, and bad guys used PC's.
- julesallen 7y agoI've worked at studios and at agencies and this is anecdotal but what I've picked up on over the years during drinks/drunks with account and creatives. There's a whole product placement sales team that monetises brands who like to see their products being handled by the good guy. Hero saves the world with 0.3 seconds left on his shining Galaxy S20, maker logo in prominence. Piss that brand off? You might not see revenue from them for a couple of seasons. Or ever. Oh dear. There is also logo and other IP/copyright enforcement. Why is made-up-spy-agency's logo over the Apple logo on what's obviously a three generation old MacBook? Because somebody didn't have the budget to factor it in. In a lot of cities you can't even include buildings in b roll without legal clearance. It's fascinating when you dig in, the amount of payola for this kind of thing is really interesting (and thinking how to monetise it…).
- sleepybrett 7y agoThe 'Cloud Gate' in Chicago has a bunch of bullshit around it re licensing and photography permission. Asinine for a piece of 'public' art.
- JadeNB 7y ago> The 'Cloud Gate' in Chicago has a bunch of bullshit around it re licensing and photography permission. I'm all too willing to believe this, but Wikipedia doesn't know of anyone getting in trouble but the NRA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Gate#In_popular_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Gate#In_popular_culture . (Not that it's OK if only one group is subject to onerous restrictions, or that other groups couldn't be targeted, or if others have just been pre-emptively stopped from even trying.) Do you have a reference?
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y agoI wonder if this type of thing will have the bad guys using open tech thus giving a bad impression. The bad guy's computer can't be a Mac (Apple objects) or Windows (Microsoft objects) so it is Linux. To type up the evil manifesto, they can't use Google Docs (Google objects) or Microsoft Office (Microsoft objects) so they use Open Office. To find directions to their target, they can't use Google Maps (Google objects) or Apple Maps (Apple objects) so they use Open Street Maps. To chat with their evil buddies, they can't use Messages (Apple objects) or WhatsApp(Facebook objects) so they use Matrix. Basically, in the movies of the future, the bad people will all be using open software/hardware.
- oehtXRwMkIs 7y agoMy goodness, when will people stop mentioning Open Office? It's been almost a decade, please replace it with Libre Office in your mind.
- GuB-42 7y agoYou mean Star Office? ;) Anyways, Open Office still exists, it is now owned by Apache. But yes, Libre Office mostly took over.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoI think we're safe, because most movies seem to follow the alternative of "somebody makes a static imitation of a known product's UI in After Effects".
- ChrisArchitect 7y agoother discussion..... * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22427546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22427546 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22430397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22430397 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22431243 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22431243 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22426385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22426385 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22425435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22425435 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22425435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22425435 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22424848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22424848
- lacker 7y agoBeware, the post is a spoiler for the movie it's talking about! Normally in a spoiler you know what movie is going to be spoiled, but in this case if you've read the headline you know how it will be spoiled, but not which movie it is. I advise people who care about any movie spoilers to not click the link.
- roflchoppa2 7y agowow dude, spoiler alert
- squarefoot 7y agoI'm pretty sure car companies did similar things in the past in movies showing good guys chasing bad ones.
- cletus 7y agoSo, Apple care enough about their brand that they are circumspect when it comes to what they pay for in regards to product placement? Say it isn't so! Literally everybody does this. Even the US armed forces do this [1] eg: > A study of the internal correspondence shows that the script changes the DoD requests fall into three categories: accuracy (historical and technical), behavior of individual serviceman, and overall image of the military. [1]: https://preserve.lehigh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2328&context=etd https://preserve.lehigh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2328...
- seemslegit 7y ago* Contains a spoiler for "Knives out" - rot13 to read Zber vzcbegnagyl, va "Xavirf bhg" gur thl riraghnyyl qvfpbirerq gb or gur ivyynva vf gur bayl bar jub bcrayl ershfrf gb gnyx gb gur cbyvpr jura rirel bgure cynhfvoyr zheqre fhfcrpg qbrf fb rntreyl naq nyfb unf n pybfrhc fubg bs uvf cubar jura rznvyvat na rkgbegvba yrggre sebz n cebgbaznvy nqqerff.
- v01dlight 7y agoV ybir gung gurl hfrq cebgbaznvy. Vg vaqvpngrf fbzrbar va cebqhpgvba tnir fbzr npghny gubhtug gb ubj na nabalzbhf rznvy zvtug or frag, be unq n plorefrphevgl pbafhygnag uryc gurz trg gur qrgnvy evtug. Zber bs gung naq znlor npphengr unpxvat/plore fghss jvyy orpbzr znvafgernz va zrqvn!
- seemslegit 7y agoGehr, ohg vtaberf gur ynetre pbagrkg urer, ershfny gb ibyhagnevyl gnyx gb gur cbyvpr naq hfr bs nabalzbhf rznvy ner orvat hgvyvmrq ol gur nffubyr-ivyynva - va gur zvaqf bs ynl ivrjref cebgbaznvy vf orvat nffbpvngrq jvgu arsnevbhf npgvivgl, abg frphevgl. Gur "vaabprag crbcyr unir abguvat gb uvqr" cebtenzzvat fubhyq or n ovttre pbaprea guna oenaq cynprzrag.
- shaneprrlt 7y agoKind of like how Amazon Studios won't allow movies that show villians with bald heads like Lex Luthor.
- DevKoala 7y agoIs this true?
- cgrealy 7y agoGod, I hope so.... that would be hilarious.
- shaneprrlt 7y agoLmao, no just joking.
- DevKoala 7y agoI was looking forward to watching this movie, and this is a a spoiler when you put two and two together. The actual murderer is the one character who never uses an iPhone in any scene. :/
- Apocryphon 7y agoSo does this mean Howard Ratner in Uncut Gems wasn't a bad guy?
- JadeNB 7y agoThe apostrophe in "won't" somehow got swallowed.
- zantana 7y agoThis only detracts from the best mystery in the movie which was why is there a laptop running XP!?!?!
- julianozen 7y agoWhich is ironic because in real life the villains use iPhone because the FBI can’t break into them ^This is a joke and not commentary on whether encryption backdoors should exist
- abiogenesis 7y agoDefine "bad guy". Not all movies have characters that are either black or white.
- terminaljunkid 7y agoApparently basic phones and feature phones demised after mangolian gangster characters used it in movies. Apple is defending themselves against the same thing happening to them again.