Thursday, May 17th, 2012
Product placement is now a mainstay in movies. However, critics say that there is a danger to it?what happens if a product is falsely marketed in a movie?
In a recent New York Times blog post from Ian Ayres, he used ?Date Night? as an example.
In one scene, Steve Carell?s character needed to check photos on his flash drive. He asked the cab driver if he can borrow a lap top. The driver lends him a Kindle, which reads the flash drive successfully.
However, in the real world, Kindles can?t read flash drives!
Ayres says that the product placement may have violated the law with false or misleading advertising. He even cites an example of a customer buying a Kindle after being influenced by the movie. And when the customer finds out that the Kindle can?t read flash drives (unlike how it?s portrayed in the movie), can he sue?
However, there are some who argue that a movie is a fictional place to begin with. Meaning, characters and products should be perceived in the right way?fictive!
?We don’t expect to get the same performance out of our cars as James Bond does,? explained Rebecca Tushnet, a professor from Georgetown University Law. ?And we probably don’t expect our devices to react as fast as TV/movie devices (do) in real life.?
Still, there should be a law specifically aimed at product placements. Making it immune to the false advertising law can be potentially dangerous for consumers.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
