Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:
I'm going to answer for the United States. No. Private media does not require any clearance by the Public/Government to produce, distribute, air, or sell any work of art, critical of the government or not. It's protected by the Constitutional guarantee of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Press , and even given special protection via copyright law. This may differ for other countries. House of Cards was originally a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) miniseries. The BBC is the public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom, a government organization. Whether the BBC needs permission from the UK government would be controlled by UK (and maybe European Union) law. Evidently, it's charter...
Full answer by cde: https://movies.stackexchange.com/a/44542 (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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