MemeMachineGo!

Mad Hot Ballroom (warning: obnoxious flash site with audio) is a documentary about a children’s Latin dance competition. I’ve been meaning to see it since it came out.

This interview with the producer describes the insane difficulties they faced in getting permission to use the music.

Stay Free!: There’s a scene where a woman’s cell phone rings and she has the “Rocky” theme ring tone. I noticed that you even cleared that! I would have thought that could be an example of fair use.

Sewell: I thought so too. It’s only six seconds! But our lawyer said we needed to clear it. So I called Sprint, which owns the ring tone master rights, and they gave it to me for free because they saw it as product placement. But then I called EMI, which owns the publishing rights and they asked for $10,000. […]

Stay Free!: Were there any other inconvenient clearances you had to deal with?

Sewell: Well, we had to watch out for billboards and Frito-Lay trucks all the time. But I usually didn’t care, we would just shoot. The biggest danger with clearances is when they interfere with documenting real life. Something spontaneous like a cell phone ringing is different than a planned event. If filmmakers have to worry about these things, documentaries will cease to be documentaries! What happens when the girls go shopping and there’s music playing in the stores? We were lucky because in our movie the music wasn’t identifiable, but otherwise what are we supposed to do: walk up to the store manager and say, “Excuse me but can you turn off your radio?”

Another amazing guide to how bad it is is the Do Not Accept Wiki cataloging images that are trademarked, and thus photographs containing them can’t be published without permission.

The stitching on Levi’s pockets. Harley Davidsons. Peeps. The Empire State Building. It goes on and on.