Hello folks,
Thought I'd share my experience trying to go through the proper channels to get permission to use a clip on youtube. I recently found a notebook of mine with my old schedule from when I was 16 in it which prompted me to try and make a video regarding the schedule. Which I'm working on now, but it gave me an idea to make another video. I remembered when I was a child watching the Disney show Chip N Dale's Rescue Rangers. They had this one episode that was like one of the heaviest things I've ever seen dealt with on a cartoon show. The title of the episode is "The Curious Case of the Cola Cult". For those who haven't seen the episode or only vaguely remember what I'm talking about the video is on youtube in two parts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0FUPO_4bLo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpO_NxqcT8g
Well I thought it would be really cool to talk about how I'm nine years old, watching Disney and all these parallels start showing up between the religion I'm going to go worship and this evil cult on a Disney Cartoon that I had watched earlier. When something strikes my fancy I'm going to bust it to the bitter end and since I don't feel like getting flagged for improper use, getting struck with a DMCA take-down notice and end up losing my videos I figured I'd better go through the proper channels. I call the basic number which takes me to touchtone system, that brings me to an operator that says I need to call the New York office. They refer me to a woman who's retired, then her replacement doesn't handle any of the Television work, which gets me to the Television property lawyer only to find out they only deal with shows before 1984. That brings me finally to the person I want to speak with and the answer is....
"No"
They don't let any clips be used of any of their television shows for any purpose whatsoever. The only way they allow clips to be used is for charity cases, which of course is not his department. Didn't want to hear the context of the use of the clip, nothing like that. So well, I guess *explative deleted* is my basic reaction there. There might even be a "You" after the *explative deleted*.
I literally tried every avenue, I'm working on a documentary which I was told if I wanted to use the clip for that purpose it would be no, with my youtube channel having a minimal amount of views I get a no, with my youtube channel being non-profit, with having a non-profit organization's backing the answer is no, the only way I could even think about getting the clip would be if I was involved with a charitable organization that already works with Disney.
Happiest place on Earth my ass.