? about Synch rights
 

Is it true that you can use up to 40 seconds of a song without paying lisceneing fees. Does anyone know if this is correct?

Sure it is true...you can do it. But the copyright holder might sue the pants off you.
;-)

Paul Tauger is an IP attorney who is kind enough to be one of our moderators. Here is just a sampling of similar threads I found by keywording "seconds" and his name:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/taking-ca...-websites.html
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/taking-ca...-question.html
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/taking-ca...t-arrgghh.html
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/taking-ca...ic-lyrics.html

So the answer is probably not what you were hoping to hear.

Just in case you didn't catch the wink in Pete's reply, there is no magic number of seconds below which a license isn't needed. For all practical purposes, if the music is recognizable at all, you need to license it. There are exceptions under the doctrine of fair use but that only applies in very limited circumstances and is not time dependent, and there are some exceptions regarding incidental inclusion. You'd need an IP attorney to review your exact use to see if one of those might apply but it's rare that it would.

Thanks for the input guys!