This process, called 'greeking,' is still quite common, as masking tape is a lot cheaper than making the blurred area track the motion of the naughty brand name. Before the development of digital image processing, stagehands handled this by covering labels on bottles, cans or boxes with masking tape or paper strips. If an interviewee for a documentary is wearing a T-shirt with the Nike swoosh, break out the Pixellation. This mostly occurs in non-fiction programming, like News Broadcasts and Documentaries, where the producer has little control over the people and the environment, or Reality Shows. So much so that when products or corporate logos turn up incidentally in TV programming without having paid the requisite dues, they will be censored.

Companies pay big bucks for Product Placement, and popular media certainly appreciate the value of this cash cow.