How can you tell who own the copyright of a DVD.

[brainz]

I am wanting to use a small clip from a DVD for medical purposes. This will be non profit making, but will be distributed to patients. The company that own the DVD was called Simitar Entertainment, but I believe they no longer exist.

[Buenchico]

Assuming that it's a feature film, try searching for it on the Internet Movie Database (and looking at the 'Company Credits' section):
http://www.imdb.com
(To get the necessary contact information you'll either need to sign up for a free trial of Imdb Pro, or simply Google for it).

Chris

[grffindoor2011]

Simitar were auctioned off. I can't remember who to. Another company will own the rights now.

I wanted to use 22 second clip of a piece of footage for a documentary I was producing a few years back. Even then they wanted £4k for what amounted to a locally produced dvd.

Is it any wonder that most view the whole copyright issue as a load of nonsense. The public should be allowed to use copyright material for reasonable cost according to the project intended.

[lampgb]

There is plenty of copyright free music out there have a look on the following link: http://incompetech.com