[HBKXNCUO]

>The fact that we don't ban deceptively positive depictions of branded products is strong evidence that we do trust consumers to know the difference between fiction and reality.

I would definitely not classify that as strong evidence. I'm not sure I'd classify it as evidence at all. There are many people that benefit considerably from consumers not being immune to psychological tricks in advertising, and they have a lot of money and a lot of incentive to make sure they're allowed to keep using those tricks on people.

The small subset of the population that is even aware of the magnitude of the manipulation that the people are subject to has comparatively little incentive to stop it from happening.

[danShumway]

It's strong evidence that our law doesn't consider fictional portrayals of real products to be a problem. More importantly, it's strong evidence that we shouldn't be uniquely concerned over negative portrayals of trademarks.

If it's not a serious problem that brands are able to pay to portray their products in a positive light, then it also shouldn't be a serious problem that people can portray a brand in a negative light.

That's all that I was trying to get at -- that there's no reason for people to be uniquely concerned about negative product references in media if they're not also concerned about positive references.

[HBKXNCUO]

>it's strong evidence that we shouldn't be uniquely concerned over negative portrayals of trademarks.

Again I'm not sure how it's evidence of that, but I agree that we should not be uniquely concerned about negative portrayals.

I see what you are saying now though, and I agree with you on that point.

Of course the people who make a lot of money off of positive advertising generally are the ones who stand to lose a lot of money from negative portrayals, and they also happen to have a lot of money, so it's not surprise that the law does not treat them equally.