If needing help acquiring permission/licensing for official TCC-related purposes, please read this statement, found on this page of the Copyright Guide.
If fair use will not suffice, you will need to seek a license.
A license is a permission and, in this context, means the same thing:
The terms “license” and “permission agreement” are often used interchangeably. You may also find that, in some situations, a license or permission agreement is referred to as a “clearance agreement.” “Clearance” is a general term used to describe the process by which permission is granted. From Stanford Libraries.
First, if the material is still under copyright (in other words, not in the public domain), you must figure out the copyright holder, which is sometimes easier said than done. It is not always the author/artist who created the work, but rather a publisher or an estate. It can often be hard to know just who to contact if the rightsholder is no longer the author, or contact information is hard to track down.
Beyond this, licenses are not usually free and come with a copyright clearance fee. Keep in mind the affordabilty of your use.
Sometimes, works come pre-licensed, such as works with attached Creative Commons licenses or works like DVDs that come with performance rights.
In general, it is alway best to get permission in writing and that it specifies the timeframe for the use clearly (a semester or in perpetuity).
Please see the links below for more information.
