Greedy Bastards or Finished Films

The other day I went in to the film group to finish up my shorts, doing some touch ups and whatnot. I now have a DVD done that is pretty smokin' and can start to show people what I did. I used some actual music in the background, so I thought that I would try to find out how much it would cost to get the film festival rights to use the songs so that I could send some off to be seen in various places. I received a prompt reply from the CMRRA telling me that festival rights for one year BEGIN at $200 PER song. Now, I understand that people want to get paid, but that's retarded. Despite the fact that I have a) no money and b) am using the songs for a grand total of MAYBE one minute each, the "man" still wants that much coin. No wonder so many people are bitter at the recording industry, they have a stranglehold on copyright that can't be touched. It has been shown that the number 1 export of the U.S. is copyright after all. I don't think it's right that you should have to pay to get film festival rights at all. You are not making any money off of someone else's work, you are just trying to get your name out there in the hopes of one day getting a career. It's reasonable to expect to have to pay for the rights to use a song for a feature, or something that is going to be sold to people, but not for something that isn't. Permission is one thing, payment is another. I guess what this teaches me is that I am going to have to try harder to find public domain songs or else compose my own (god that sounds pretentious...) It's not worth it to pay that kind of money. Especially when it's only good for a year.
Tonight is Jay's birthday at Hooligan's, come one, come all!