Trademarks, Brands & Logos
Brands are everywhere the moment you point a camera at the real world — on cans, cars, clothes, storefronts, phones. The good news: trademark rules are far more forgiving than music. The catch: a few specific uses will still get you in trouble. Here's where the lines are.
After the strictness of music, brands come as a relief. A trademark protects a brand's identity — its name, logo, distinctive look — but the law that governs it is about consumer confusion and reputation, not simply "did you show it." That's a crucial difference from copyright. Showing a Coke can on a table in your film is generally fine; the trademark only becomes a problem when your use might confuse people about who made or endorsed your film, or when you damage the brand's reputation. So most incidental brand appearances are okay — but a handful of specific moves cross the line. Let's map the three zones.
✓ Usually fine
! Be careful
✕ Avoid
Trademark risk rises with prominence + implication. Incidental and neutral is usually fine; featured, endorsement-implying, or reputation-damaging is where you get letters.
Trademark vs. copyright — a key distinction
It's worth separating the two, because they behave differently. Copyright protects creative works (the song, the painting, the photo) and is about reproduction — showing it can infringe. Trademark protects brand identity and is about confusion and reputation — showing it is often fine, but implying endorsement or damaging the brand is not. This is why music (copyright) is strict while a Pepsi can (trademark) is usually fine: different laws, different tests. Note the overlap trap, though — a logo can be both a trademark and a copyrighted design, so a stylized artistic logo featured prominently can raise both issues at once.
The three things that actually get you in trouble
If you avoid these, you'll dodge nearly all brand problems:
- Implied endorsement. Anything suggesting the brand sponsors, approves of, or is affiliated with your film. Featuring a logo like an ad, or a character praising a product to camera, edges into this.
- Disparagement / tarnishment. Showing a real brand in a false, harmful, or degrading light — a named product that poisons someone, a real company depicted as villainous. This is where brands get litigious.
- Altering the mark. Defacing, distorting, or incorporating a real logo into your own branding (title, poster, key art). Using a trademark as if it were yours is the clearest violation.
The safe move: prop brands
When a brand needs to be featured, damaged, or made part of the story, the industry answer is simple and cheap: invent a fake one. This is why films are full of made-up sodas, fictional airlines, and phones with the logo turned away. Your art department can "greek" real products (remove or obscure logos) or create prop brands — a fictional cola, a made-up beer label, an invented tech company — that you fully own and can do anything to. Need a character to crash a specific car brand or drink a poisoned product? Use a prop brand and the whole problem vanishes. Controlling what's in your frame (the same lesson as Chapter 8) is, once again, the cheapest clearance strategy there is.
Not legal advice. Trademark and related unfair-competition law is fact-specific and varies by country; "usually fine" is a practical guideline, not a guarantee. E&O insurers and distributors will scrutinize brand appearances — have an entertainment attorney review anything featured, negative, or central to your film.
I once wrote a scene where a character rants that a specific, real fast-food chain gave him food poisoning — named it, blamed it, the works. Funny on the page; a lawsuit magnet on screen. Disparaging a real brand by name is exactly the thing trademark holders will come after. The fix took my art department ten minutes: we invented a fictional chain with its own dumb logo, and the scene got funnier because we could go as broad as we wanted with a brand we owned. That's the whole trick — when a brand has to be featured or trashed, make it a fake one. Incidental real brands in the background, fine. Featured or defamed real brands, invent your own. — WR
People, places, property, music, and brands — you've now cleared every category of content that can appear in a film. The final chapter of the module pulls it all together into the single package distributors actually ask for: chain of title, the clearance report, and E&O insurance.
Generate the releases, location agreements, and clearance paperwork your shoot needs — talent, appearance, location, and property forms ready to sign, right when you need them.