Stay Free!: How did Mad Hot Ballroom survive the copyright cartel? "Answer: by limiting music that played in classrooms, haggling over clearance fees, and cutting out a scene.

Sewell: We first cleared music for two years for festival use, and then went back and negotiated for worldwide commercial use in all media, for perpetuity. It was extremely expensive. For most films, music licensing is 1 to 10 percent of the production budget; ours came in at 45 percent: $140,000.

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. I said no way--even the classics weren't getting that much. Luckily, we were able to get it for less.

Sewell: But "Hit the Road Jack" was special for [Ray Charles]. His lawyer said, "I don't care if you were the president and had half a million dollars, you're not going to get this song." There are two songs Ray Charles seldom granted rights to, "Hit the Road, Jack" and "God Bless America." I love that: "Hit the Road" is right there with "God Bless America."

Sewell: When we were down shooting the boys playing foosball, Ronnie yelled out, "Everybody dance now!" Just when I think we've finished the film, someone points out that we have to clear that because it's a "visual vocal cue." So I went back to the publishers, and the first publisher, Spirit, says they'll throw it in with the other things we've cleared if Warner Chappell throws it in. But Warner Chappell said, "Look, we've cut you some nice deals, we can't give this to you." They said this three-second bit would cost $5,000. And since they had Most Favored Nation status it would have raised the cost on similar uses, like the Rocky ring-tone. So I went back to lawyer and said we should keep it in because this should be a poster child for fair use. But he didn't recommend taking on the music industry. Those corporations have too much money for us to play Norma Rae our first time out." It's about control over money.