How do i acquire permission from an author to display his or her...

[Pauleen d]

...copyrighted material? I need to acquire permission from authors (rob thomas for "Little Wonders" and Rascal Flatts for "Life is a Highway") Im just going to put it into a powerpoint that i am going to show to about 40 people.

[deb j]

i don't think you need to if you aren't making money from it

[asnakeny]

Technically, there would be two different agencies you would need to contact for permissions: the song's composers (or administering agencies, which would typically be ASCAP or BMI) and the owner of the copyright for the audio recording of the song (which would either be the record company that distributes it or the Harry Fox agency.) So if you wanted to get permissions, you could contact those groups mentioned above like you would any other business (and you wouldn't need to reach Rob Thomas or Rascal Flatts.)

Should you want to contact these groups, the type of license you would need to get would be called a sync (or mechanical) license.

However, in your case, you will not be commercially distributing the powerpoint presentation (unless you plan to have it available for downloading from your website, in which case this paragraph won't apply), so it is unlikely you will need to worry about getting any licenses- as how would any of the groups above know that you played a song in from of 40 people for just one time?