[usrusr]

That's exactly how I came to the same conclusion, that only the disclaimer is new.

I am actually quite torn about those disclaimers: once people have officially committed to product placement, any remaining internal unwillingness to compromise writing for placement revenue will break down completely.

The opposite is just as worse by the way: our public broadcasting networks here in Germany are producing some rather popular fiction, and they have started to implement draconian rules to fight product placement (after some sizable scandals where the money went to their contractors or employees instead of going to the nominally nonprofit networks themselves). The result is that any time something like social media comes up in, say, a cop show, they have to make up a new fantasy brand to represent Facebook, Twitter or Google. This severely hampers their ability to talk about the modern world. Imagine for example what would be left of The Godfather if you replaced all references to the "brands" of Catholicism (and Christianity in general) or Italy with generic placeholders. You might as well move it from America to the Shire entirely.

The influence of product placement is there now matter how you spin it. In House of Cards (US), the worst influence might not be in who paid but in who did not: iirc Twitter seems to be pretty much embargoed in the show, even though they are using it for promotion quite a lot.