??
Because they can’t be shown without the owners’ permission, and it’s often not worth the bother to get it.
If they don’t it’s free advertising.
Commercial stations want to sell ad time, so they don’t want to be giving advertising away.
Non-commercial don’t want to LOOK commercial, so they don’t want to be passively advertising through incidental logos in the programs.
Sounds crazy
Wouldn’t the viewer prefer to watch a non-blurry TV-show and therefore be more likely to come back and watch more.
btw…Is this done anywhere else on this planet?
The drink logos on the cups of the judges in American Idol and America’s Got Talent are blurred when they show it here in the UK. I assumed it was simply because the companies in question hadn’t paid Fox for the logos to be shown in the UK - are you saying they’re blurred in the US version of the show, too?
I don’t think that is true.
Many advertisers who are paying for commercials on these shows don’t want to have their competitors getting free ad time in the show itself. The easiest way for the show to deal with this is to have a blanket policy of not showing any business logos at all.
Tengu and Little Nemo have it right. It’s not that they’d get in trouble with, say, Pepsi for using a Pepsi logo without permission. It’s free advertising, for one thing, and for another it’s perfectly legal.
But if you’re showing Pepsi logos for free, how do you convince them to start paying you to show their logo? For that matter, if you’re showing Pepsi logos for free, how do you get Coke to start paying you?
Nonsense. You don’t need permission to show a logo or use any other trademark in a fictional or documentary work.
Copyrighted material, like music, is a different story.
Keep in mind that shows can enter syndication with different advertisers than they had when they originally aired. Say the people in your show are using Nokia cellphones and you want to sell ad time in syndication to Samsung. You’re SOL.
Honestly though with digital manipulation being what it is these days and the ways advertising is changing (product placement inside a show is much more likely to be seen than commercial time) I’m surprised they would blur the logos on anything, rather than digitally replacing it with something they did get paid for.
I am not a lawyer, but I beg to differ. You are apparently saying that use of a logo in a fictional work constitutes “fair use”. My company, Sun, and IBM certainly don’t believe this. Here is a quote from the Sun web site:
“U.S. law does not recognize any fair use of logos. If you want to use one of our logos, you will need a permission or license.”
IBM says something similar. It is clear Sun and IBM are reserving the right to sue you if you use their logo in any way without their permission. The same is not true for text trademarks, or logos that consist merely of text in some common font.
If an American show is being shown on the BBC, the BBC is required to blur the logo. BBC can not have advertising of any form on the programs they show.
The thing is most shows are not going to know during their production who their advertisers will be when they are eventually broadcast. And they certainly couldn’t guess who might be advertising via them in ten years when they’re being syndicated in reruns. It’s easier just to have a ad-neutral show and sell commercials.
No, I’m not. Fair use is a concept in copyright law. It has nothing to do with displaying a product logo as part of a TV show.
“Using” a logo encompasses far more situations than displaying a product on a TV show. If you were to release your own product with a Sun logo on it, you would be in violation of their trademark (unless you have a license from them to use the logo.) That’s completely different.
This doesn’t sound right to me. IANAL either, but I would interpret this restriction as saying you can’t use Sun’s logo in your own marketing materials; you can’t put it on your resume; you can’t use it in your artistic design. However, if the logo is in a public place where casual filming will capture the logo inadvertently, what is the problem with it appearing on TV?
Since there are privacy limits for people as soon as they enter a public place, why would Sun’s logo enjoy better protection than a random passer-by who was caught on film?
“Fair Use” can be used as a defense against trademark infringement just as in copyright infringement. Again, I am not a lawyer, but every company I’ve ever worked for has been obsessive about preventing anyone from using their logo, without explicitly asking for permission and following all their rules about how to display it, including how big it can be, what background it is on, etc., etc. This also applies to non-commercial uses of the logo or other trademark, such as use in a movie without permission. One of the fears is that the company will lose the trademark by not being diligent in enforcing it. This is what happened to trademarks like cellophane, aspirin, and videotape. Thus, even if it is a good thing for a logo to appear in a movie, a company might sue just to establish their diligence in enforcing their trademark rights. This may not be likely to happen, but the wise movie maker will avoid the problem by not showing any logos without permission. This is less of a concern in a documentary in which the logos might appear incidentally or for legitimate clarification.
“Fair use” does not prevent being sued, it is just a valid defense if you are sued. The Sun web site claims there is no such thing as “fair use” of a logo. I don’t know if that is true, but I’m sure a trademark lawyer wrote or reviewed that sentence.
Are you sure about that? I know the BBC can’t take paid advertisements, and product placement in content they create is all but forbidden, but product placement in films and the like is usually fine. For instance, all the product placements in James Bond movies are left intact.
Right, two different things. If you made a Pepsi logo and put it on something, there’s not much “fair use” . But if you go out, and buy a can of Pepsi that they put their own logo on, but show the can in a scene in a trivial manner, there’s really nothing they can do about it.
The BBC doesn’t create James Bond movies, though.
I can’t speak for all jurisdictions, but displaying a logo in say a documentry for instance would not be unlawful unless the context made it such, for instance, showing a shot of a square in city center which contains a McDonalds or showing the logos in a programme to tell which companies are say based in a particular city would be fair use (though probably not in a tourist brochure).
However to be on the safe side, Trademarks may be blocked out or people might try and avoid showing them, there is no case, but you could get embroiled in a dispute, a highly anal trademark owner may (and often do) send you a legal notice, and it takes time and money to reply to that of fight a suit. Much easier just to avoid the whole issue by blacking out.
In the same vein to protect your trademark, you may claim a blanket requirement for premission, that deters people from misusing it and claiming the use was proper, again no case, but will take a lot of time and money and effort./
I AM a lawyer.