The Copyright Cartel

Here is an interesting story on how some filmmakers tackled the copyright issues in their film "Mad Hot Ballroom". The documentary is about young children doing what else ballroom dancing" to several different songs. I've always been frustrated at the copyright issue, and what is fair use and what isn't. Where I work we adhere to "royalty free" copyrighted material for projects, but there have been a number of times where I felt it should have fallen into the "fair use" domain, but once you add lawyers to the mix the field becomes littered with landmines. The article makes an interesting point in saying that maybe the filmmakers were being too cautious, but then again as an indie the film-makers had to protect themselves, and even school districts insulate themselves by enforcing the royalty free music only policy. It's too bad because interesting material gets censored before it's even shot. One more thing the filmmaker of today has to worry about.