Shot of person holding RED camera in movie

[Gavin Greenwalt]

You cannot copyright a functional shape. You can protect "Trade-dress" but that's a different bucket of worms. So RED couldn't claim tradedress on its lens mount appearance since its appearance is literally form following function. If it put some distinctly red flares on it though that could be considered "trade dress" and get you into trouble. Generally though for film making trade dress isn't a problem. If the logo is recognizable then you need to paint it out or tape it over or obscure it somehow. I'm relatively certain though if you just put an Epic Body into the film and blacked out the logo you would be fine. Once you flash that Ford logo or Red logo etc then you're using a trademark and that's problematic. Also problematic is if there is any art on the product. So while they can't copyright the car, if they had a tribal pattern on the side of the car that can get you into hot water. Or if you had an Apple laptop with an illustration on the desktop that illustration is still protected. Also any sounds it makes are copyrighted. So the startup sound on a mac or the error sound are copyrighted. The icons can also be copyrighted so if you show the user interface you could be sued for copyright infringement of the operating system.

If we had to get releases for every car, laptop, phone, shoe, hat and building in every commercial no commercial would ever get made. You do need to remove signs, logos and artwork from the world though.

 

[Glen Powell]

Pretty sure these guys don't have any permission forms for any of the products that they obliterate in their blender… This is a constant question that every filmmaker asks, and most lawyers will give you the 'safe' answer of "don't do it". In reality what you can do and get away with often differ.

 

[Nick Pasquariello]

Pretty sure these guys don't have any permission forms for any of the products that they obliterate in their blender… This is a constant question that every filmmaker asks, and most lawyers will give you the 'safe' answer of "don't do it". In reality what you can do and get away with often differ.

I think the Will It Blend stuff, since they are just showing exactly what happens when they do a thing, falls under the News Gathering clause. It's basically documentary. Documentary made for the sake of selling a product while being entertaining, but still documentary. Yes it's a grey area, but lawyers live for grey areas.

Also a grey area? Youtube and web video in general. The laws are well established for Movies and TV. They aren't for Web. So all around, I wouldn't draw any legal conclusions from any web series.

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

My assumption is that it would be a case-by-case use basis, since there isn't some blanket release that I know of.

Every time you see an Apple product in a Movie or TV in the past 10+ years? Apple knew about it, wanted it there, and all the right paperwork was filed. Smart on their part, since the Apple stuff was always being used by cool hip people doing smart hip things. One of the (many) contributing factors to their meteoric rise. But make no mistake: highly orchestrated and controlled.

Well, I think a lot of people think that, but I was surprised to learn that's not actually true. You just need the right product placement coordinator. My low budget indie film Amy Alyson Fans (coming to iTunes and other digital outlets July 2!) has Apple products shown, along with Microsoft, Dell, Coke, Monster, Budweiser, Axe, Heineken, Volvo (gave us a few cars to use), and a huge number of other products, and it wasn't difficult whatsoever. I'm not even sure if Apple reviewed our script or if it was a product placement firm that reviewed it on their behalf, because it was surprisingly easy to clear Apple and I can guarantee they never saw our finished film because we didn't send it to them. We send stills along to our placement companies and verified that we showed the various products on behalf of the brands who sponsored us, but that was about it. I think there's a big myth that it's incredibly difficult to clear the big brands, which I certainly thought was the case before I directed this film, but it was actually quite easy and I was amazed at how much free product a lot of them gave us. We didn't get anything from Apple, just clearance, but that's all we needed.

The only company I know for sure read our script is McDonalds, which is hilarious, because they sent us a cease and desist letter for a line where a character says, "Well, at least McDonalds is hiring." I know obviously that their letter is nonsense and that I am well within my rights to mention their company in my film, just as I am any other company, even if it was in a derogatory way. You must refrain from LIBEL, which is something provably untrue about a company, but you can certainly have characters who say, "Ugh, I hate McDonalds so bad, their food is crap!" That's the opinion of the character and protected under First Amendment rights. Then again, we all just laughed about it and didn't want to deal with them, so it was easy to change the line and now it says "Subway" instead of McDonalds. I was actually more honored that someone at McDonalds read the script than I was annoyed that they didn't like the line

 

[Glen Powell]

So much hand wringing over stuff like this… If you buy and pay for products to use as set dressing, there should be no problem. Otherwise EVERY scene in EVERY TV show or movie would be in a blank white studio. Ever seen a coffee maker in a shot? A vacuum? A Stove? A pair of pants that an actor wears? Sunglasses? If you are using the product as it was intended to be used you're fine.

Even if you don't use it the way it was intended there is a huge amount of leeway… Case in point, pretty much every spec spot any director has ever done:

Thread here

 

[Jaime Vallés]

You cannot copyright a functional shape. You can protect "Trade-dress" but that's a different bucket of worms. So RED couldn't claim tradedress on its lens mount appearance since its appearance is literally form following function. If it put some distinctly red flares on it though that could be considered "trade dress" and get you into trouble. Generally though for film making trade dress isn't a problem. If the logo is recognizable then you need to paint it out or tape it over or obscure it somehow. I'm relatively certain though if you just put an Epic Body into the film and blacked out the logo you would be fine. Once you flash that Ford logo or Red logo etc then you're using a trademark and that's problematic. Also problematic is if there is any art on the product. So while they can't copyright the car, if they had a tribal pattern on the side of the car that can get you into hot water. Or if you had an Apple laptop with an illustration on the desktop that illustration is still protected. Also any sounds it makes are copyrighted. So the startup sound on a mac or the error sound are copyrighted. The icons can also be copyrighted so if you show the user interface you could be sued for copyright infringement of the operating system.

If we had to get releases for every car, laptop, phone, shoe, hat and building in every commercial no commercial would ever get made. You do need to remove signs, logos and artwork from the world though.

What Gavin said is spot on. One thing to consider when making a feature film is E&O insurance (E&O stands for errors & omissions) which is necessary if you want a distributor to pick up your finished film (it's what protects you and the distributor in case you get sued). If you have a bunch of company logos visible in your movie, your E&O premium will be much higher (by thousands of dollars) than if you have the clearance to use them.

I recently watched an episode of The West Wing (I think it was the first episode). In one scene they're drinking some sodas in a conference room and the soda can is a generic, custom-made label that just says "COLA" on it, and sort of looks like a cross between a Pepsi and a Coke can. And that was big-budget, prime time network television.

Don't take risks. Either get permission, or cover up the logo.