Please be aware if you are using commercial music in any of your videos or photo montage works you are by law required to have a license for that music. This has been the bane of the wedding video/photographer for years as couples routinely request a favorite song to be added to their video. The problem becomes trying to attempt to get said license. Most recording studios and record labels are not interesting in selling small quantities of licenses as they routinely deal in minimum units of 100,000. The difficulty is further expanded by the types of licenses on music. A song may be owned by the composer, lyrist, record label, artist, or a combination of all of the above. You have to have approval from each of these in order to use the music. We all think that if we buy a CD or purchase a track on the Internet that it provides us with the rights to use this music for other works but that is not the case. While you may not be caught for using commercial music on your personal slide show, if you are you can be prosecuted. This is especially concerning in the era we are not living within where the RIAA is litigation happy and practicing strong arm tactics to reel in Internet file sharing. Should they tap you as someone worth investigating for unlawful usage of music it may result in a fine or legal action. Just a forewarning.
This is just another reason why I believe an overhaul of copyright and rights management as it pertains to intellectual property is in order. I would be happy to pay the appropriate artist and obtain licenses for using commercial music in my work, someone just needs to make it less painful. Same goes for obtaining music. iTunes as a concept is a great first step but needs to be expanded to include offering a service for obtaining alternative use rights. The RIAA needs to understand their clientele and how the market is evolving and move with it to become part of the solution not part of the problem.
Jeff