This may also be the time to describe the limited financial resources if any, available to you and your department for royalty payments. If you cannot ascertain the name of the copyright holder and fax number from the media item or the box, you will need to research the identity of the copyright holder. If the media item belongs to a friend or a department, check out any accompanying materials. Look for the person who ordered or purchased the film for information on where they got it. A standard book in library reference departments, the Encyclopedia of Associations , may help to locate the sponsoring organization.
Some companies are more reasonable than others.
If a copyright holder either refuses permission or wants excessive amounts of money, do find a different media item. A review of the above-mentioned catalogs may reveal a great item available from a more reasonable copyright holder. Although the reasons for requesting the change are numerous, ease of use and not having to schedule a projectionist, rank at the top. While our sympathy is with these requests, the many of the same copyright considerations noted above apply to these conversions and we must obtain copyright clearances for every item we desire to convert. Occasionally, we do seek and obtain copyright permission for a format conversion and sometimes it's even for free.