4 ms·
how 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?
by chillingeffect 7y ago
how 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.