Background Voices in a scene

If it is copyrighted material that can be recognized you must get clearance. If you are not going to profit from your project you may get away with it, but in todays litigious society there are corporations who will go after any minor infraction and other lawyers who will do it just for the publicity. IMHO, play it safe; you can always create something to fill up the space. I've done it for several films - a news segment, a sports wrap-up (in Spanish to boot!) and a radio commercial. It can be an addition to the atmosphere and the plot of the film. The news segment I created announced the candidacy for public office of one of the characters of the film (he, of course, has a skeleton in his closet) and was not originally planned for, the sports segment highlighted contention between two characters who were fans of opposing teams, the radio spot was for a fictitious store that is used for a scene later in the film.

I've also used songs in a film a similar way. The song in the montage is used later (or earlier) in the film as the song on the radio in a car or on the juke box in a bar scene.

Yes. You're better off making a fake show. Pop a short film in of yours, or ask to use one here, create fake news, etc.

Whether it's legally OK to use or not, you don't want to risk getting denied errors and omissions insurance or denied distribution because of a legal question mark. With crowd sounds it would be very easy to recreate.

Go the fake news report route. That's always looked like fun to me.

Newbie Filmmaker 1 said:

LEGAL QUESTION --- I know that you need written permission to use VOICEOVERS in films...
but what if you have a scene where somebody flips on the TV.. and we hear --- very lightly in the background of the scene --- something that I pulled off my regular TV set (perhaps a sporting event, with commentary) --- Like I said, it is not the focus of the scene.. it is background "noise"... but do I need to get permission to use THAT sound?? PLEASE HELP!!

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I don't quite get what you mean when you say 'you need written permission to use VOICEOVERS in films... '. If it's something you've recorded yourself then you don't need permission from anyone.
Are you talking about taking voice overs from other films? I can't imagine why you want to in any stiuation.