Hacker Cinema
Mad Hot Ballroom
2005 · Film · documentary · 105 min
Directed by Marilyn Agrelo
Eleven-year-old New York City public school kids journey into the world of ballroom dancing and reveal pieces of themselves and their world along the way. Told from their candid, sometimes humorous perspectives, these kids are transformed, from reluctant participants to determined competitors, from typical urban kids to "ladies and gentlemen," on their way to try to compete in the final citywide competition.
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Here's info about a documentary film not wanting to get pay performance rights simply to include a ringtone of one of the students sounding.
I had thought there had been a recent change in law or at least that the consensus opinion on this (which I disagree with) is that the use in Mad Hot Ballroom (see links) was fair use (incidental) and didn't require rights holders consent.
My view is that if the ringtone (building in your case) is incidental then you can film without it or use a non copyright soundtrack edit (different building) and it won't matter.
It bothered me that I couldn't remember the details so I looked it up and found "copyright law"+"amy sewell" turned up these: http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2005/06/fair_use_use_it.html http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/movies/16rams.html http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/06/26/1422248/Copyfraud-Is-Stealing-the-Public-Domain?from=rss