Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

If I understand your question correctly, you absolutely do not need to buy a license. Your can show a rented movie to as many friends as you want to -- my brother has a 30 person screening room in his basement, and everybody can watch the show and eat popcorn to their heart's content without violating copyright laws. The problem rears its ugly head if you started charging admission, since you don't have a license to either re-rent or show the film for profit.

But if what your talking about is a rental DVD from Netflix, for example, that you are going to show on the side of the neighbor's white clapboard house at your daughter's birthday party, you are golden, and whoever you talked to at the motion picture association should have told you so.