agency has a different portfolio of artists and publishers it represents, so if one agency can't give permission for the song you want to use, check with the others. The Motion Picture Licensing Corporation[1] and Swank Motion Pictures[2] handle permissions for a large number of film and television producers. The Copyright Clearance Center[3] grants licenses for print works, such as books, journals, and newspapers. Collective licensing agencies have the ability to grant permissions for a lot of copyrighted material, but no agency has everything, so no guarantees.
Photographs can be even trickier, because there is not a collective licensing agency for photographers. Instead, a number of stock photography companies handle permissions for many images, or photographers manage permissions themselves. Corbis,[4] Getty,[5] and Jupiter Images[6] are major places to check for images that can be licensed.
Tracking copyrights is sometimes complicated. For instance, you might think the publisher is the copyright owner, but it will direct you to another copyright owner or to a collective licensing agency. Give yourself as much time as you can to obtain permission. It's great if the owner replies immediately, but your request may take time to process and will require patience.
Once contacted, some copyright owners will give permission for free, while others will require a fee or seek to impose conditions on your use. Good faith negotiation will probably result in a satisfactory outcome, but some license fees will be too high for you, or the owner simply won't want her work used a particular way. If you can't get permission and no copyright exceptions apply, then you will just have to find an alternative to the material you wanted to use.
