The Copyright Nightmare of 'I Have a Dream' 366
CoveredTrax writes "If you weren't alive to witness Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech on the Washington Mall 48 years ago this week, you might try to switch on the old YouTube and dial it up. But you won't find it there or anywhere else; rights to its usage remain with King and his family. Typically, a speech broadcast to a large audience on radio and television (and considered instrumental in historic political changes and ranked as the most important speech in 20th century American history) would seem to be a prime candidate for the public domain. But the copyright dilemma began in December 1963, when King sued Mister Maestro, Inc., and Twentieth Century Fox Records Company to stop the unauthorized sale of records of the 17-minute oration."
Only 27 more years until public domain (Score:4, Insightful)
Right...? Or is Disney going to get another copyright extension passed?
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Right...? Or is Disney going to get another copyright extension passed?
As I understand it it's now 95 years after the creator's death so we have 52 years left.
Mickey Mouse?
Re:Only 27 more years until public domain (Score:5, Informative)
The rule is 70 years after an author's death, and only applies to works created in or after 1976. Works created prior to that were copyrighted for a fixed period from first publication. That period is presently at 95 years.
Regardless, large publishers will doubtless attempt to get the copyright period extended again, so when this speech will be in the public domain - if ever - is unknown.
Of course, if the Constitution had any weight, this speech would be public domain in about 8 years, as (IIRC) the copyright term maxed out at 56 years at the time King gave his speech, and the Constitution gives no authority for copyright law except to promote the useful arts and sciences. Whereas it is difficult to persuade a dead man to give a stirring speech in the past, none of the copyright extensions of previously published works are legal - though, of course, the courts continue to enforce them.
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No, that's fine.
If the copyright hasn't expired it can be extended indefinitely.
What is not right, however, is reinstating copyrights that have lapsed.
Clawing stuff back out of the public domain retroactively criminalizes things that were legal when committed.
And I'm surprised nobody sued on grounds of it being ex post facto.
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It's not fine that copyright can extend into eternity. It's a crock of shit.
The fast moving nature of modern culture should mean that copyright terms are reduced, not extended.
King fought long and hard and then made the ultimate sacrifice for an opportunity to be heard by society at large. I find it incredibly ironic that MLK's family should take such a position.
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I would accept your argument, however in Eldred v. Ashcroft [wikipedia.org] the U.S. Supreme Court basically said that congress could indefinitely extend copyright, particularly to conform with the laws in other countries and to meet treaty obligations. On the other hand, both Justice Stevens and Justice Breyer penned dissenting opinions that used this exact reasoning you mentioned here as reasons why CTEA (Copyright Term Extension Act) should be declared unconstitutional in terms of its retroactive application to previou
Re:Only 27 more years until public domain (Score:5, Funny)
As I understand it it's now 95 years after the creator's death so we have 52 years left.
The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
MLK's Family Received 800k from the Memorial (Score:5, Informative)
Re:MLK's Family Received 800k from the Memorial (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:MLK's Family Received 800k from the Memorial (Score:5, Funny)
Members of celebrities families are greedy free-riding bastards who hang on their relatives coattails. In other news, rodent attacks man. More at 11.
Why bring Jimmy Carter into this?
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And Billy, for that matter.
Re:MLK's Family Received 800k from the Memorial (Score:5, Informative)
For those that don't catch the reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident
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“The animal was clearly in distress, or perhaps berserk. The President confessed to having had limited experience with enraged rabbits. He was unable to reach a definite conclusion about its state of mind."
A president with "limited experience with enraged rabbits"? Voters won't make that mistake twice!
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Now we have an enraged rabbit with limited experience in the presidency.
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The ones that you hear about may be. It's just another case of the worst also being the loudest.
Most family members of most celebrities keep their head down and carry on as normal, occasionally annoyed when people poke them about their famous niece/uncle/brother.
Re:MLK's Family Received 800k from the Memorial (Score:5, Insightful)
Members of celebrities families are greedy free-riding bastards who hang on their relatives coattails. In other news, rodent attacks man. More at 11.
King's family is just continuing what King himself did; copyright as much of what he said and wrote as he could, and jealously guard the rights and profits from such work. It doesn't exactly jibe with the image we have of him today, but facts are facts. The man was intent on squeezing out every dime could in this manner.
Re:MLK's Family Received 800k from the Memorial (Score:4, Insightful)
King's family is just continuing what King himself did; copyright as much of what he said and wrote as he could, and jealously guard the rights and profits from such work. It doesn't exactly jibe with the image we have of him today, but facts are facts. The man was intent on squeezing out every dime could in this manner.
Was he really "intent on squeezing out every dime" or was it really about controlling his words to prevent them from being misused? I'm not talking about what his survivors do now, but what MLK did himself.
After all, the US copyright system does not really have an equivalent of the continental "moral right" to prevent distortion of the author's intent. So the only way to to get the same effect is to zealously pursue the US property right version of copyright.
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In partial deference to MLK's widow, she didn't have an insurance policy on her husband and after his death she was pretty much destitute. I don't think he even paid much into Social Security. The copyright on his speeches and what other publications he had was pretty much her sole source of financial support.
Why more than 40 years later we should still be helping his family out is another story, but at least originally there was a very legitimate objective here in terms of what the royalties would be use
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with one tiny difference, he actually wrote it.
Well, we are taking his word that he wrote it. His track record for plagiarism is pretty awful. Like his doctoral dissertation [wikipedia.org] for instance.
Re:MLK's Family Received 800k from the Memorial (Score:5, Informative)
The group building the memorial are PISSING on King's grave.
Harry E. Johnson Sr., president of the foundation, made $265,085 in 2008.
They built the "memorial" with uncompensated (read "slave") labour from China.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/26/305092/mlk-jr-memorial-statue-completed-using-unpaid-chinese-laborers/ [thinkprogress.org]
Get this straight. MLK was not a "fee-good, let's all respect each other" civil-rights version of Barney the dinosaur.
He was mobilising and uniting the underprivileged, black and white, in ways that were threatening to the war-mongering coproratist kleptocrats. They didn't kill him 'cos he wanted people to drink from the same fountain.
Now, they are killing him with artificial praise. It's like the moneylenders in the Temple, now selling "Jesus Slept Here" t-shirts.
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I'm not going to automatically dismiss that story out of hand, but right now the only source I see for this story is Think Progress. A search brings up a bunch of similarly minded websites running the same exact story and all linking back to the same source.
What I found telling was that there's mention of using union labor and the leadership then backing out and going with Chinese labor. It sounds to me like people are upset that they didn't go with union labor and threw in the term "unpaid" to get people r
Re:MLK's Family Received 800k from the Memorial (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
It is a diatribe against the exploitation of the King legacy by those who stand against the type of social justice that was the foundation of his principles and action.
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When you talk, I can see the little pieces of human feces, still stuck between your teeth.
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THAT ISN'T ALWAYS TRUE!! You better take it back! Do your research, and you'll find that your statement is only true about 93.56% of the time. /sarcasm
How is this (Score:4, Interesting)
How is this different from Steam Boat Willy? Both are important to culture, but both are unavailable in the public domain. Intellectual property laws in this country have become obscene. It is time to put an end to century laws and go back to a sensible two generation intellectual property right ownership (38 years).
Re:How is this (Score:5, Insightful)
The speech contained a message that MLK (presumably) wanted to get out to everyone. Steamboat Willy, not so much.
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Looking at who he claimed copyright against seems to indicate he just didn't want companies SELLING his speech. Obviously the details of why he did it in particular is lost to time, but I doubt King wanted such control over his speech such that no one could hear it without his permission.
Of course I hate to say it but this seems to be a case of a greedy family. Their relative did something amazing and they're hoping to profit on it for years to come by keeping it out of the hands of the commoners and forcin
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Unfortunately both parties have fallen prey to the lobbying and money. Democrats are closer to Hollywood and thus more supportive of stronger copyright laws, and Republicans are hardly better.
Re:How is this (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately both parties have fallen prey to the lobbying and money. Democrats are closer to Hollywood and thus more supportive of stronger copyright laws, and Republicans are hardly better.
This is why the only way you might be able to get this on the political agenda (which is still a long way away from getting any legislation passed) is through strong corporate sponsorship for this proposal: Google might be interested, maybe Microsoft et al.
One thing needs to be very clear though: the public, that was deprived of works getting into the public domain at the expected time when they bought the works, were never financially compensated for this loss; this means that rightsholders who see their copyright term shortened also will not need to be financially compensated.
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And what motive would Microsoft have for shortening copyright?
Stock material for use in Movie Maker (Score:3)
Maybe that's why... (Score:2)
...there's no references to the speech on the new memorial in Washington, DC.
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Actually, closer to 7000
(referencing your sig)
This is patently false. (Score:5, Informative)
I have listened to this speech at work on the internet every year on the anniversary of MLK's death. The speech text and audio have never been hard to find. Here is an example site:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
I believe this counts as "anywhere else."
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http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x833ml_martin-luther-king-i-have-a-dream-s_news [dailymotion.com]
Re:This is patently false. (Score:5, Funny)
You now own the King family $120,128.
Re:This is patently false. (Score:5, Funny)
You now own the King family $120,128.
He owns them? I thought we had made more progress than that...
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It was all a dream.
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I believe this counts as "anywhere else."
Scroll to the bottom of the page you cite and note the copyright information.
I Had A Dream... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I honestly can't blame them. They paid for that dream with his life. The provisions of copyright law are ridiculous, but them's the breaks.
Re:I Had A Dream... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no justice involved in trying to hold a copyright on a speech that was given in PUBLIC, and broadcast to the public, almost 5 decades ago.
Re:I Had A Dream... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Given the long, sordid history of record companies ripping off African American artists, I hardly think it would have been MLK's dream to allow his own work to be ripped off well."
"Ripped off", how? This was a public speech. If you want to reserve rights to something, then do it in a studio or in front of a paying audience, not in front of thousands of people, in a park, for free.
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"Ripped off", how? This was a public speech. If you want to reserve rights to something, then do it in a studio or in front of a paying audience, not in front of thousands of people, in a park, for free.
While I agree with you in principle with regard to the content of MLK's speech specifically, think about what you're saying. Lots of bands give free concerts; that doesn't mean they don't retain rights to the public performance. Or to put it another way, in this society there's a difference between "free as in speech" and "free as in beer." I believe MLK's intent was the former, but that's not true of everyone who gives you something without making you pay for it.
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Performing a work does not revoke your copyright to it.
If the speech was written down, it's a tangible work and therefore copyrighted. If it wasn't, it's not.
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Pay Bo Diddley. [youtube.com]
MLK Jr. would be rolling in his grave (Score:2)
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Would he be rolling in his grave? He himself filed suit when the recordings of the speech were being sold...
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I can understand suing if someone else is selling the recordings and making money off the transaction. But once he was dead the stuff should have passed into the public domain and paying to create a memorial? I don't think so. That's beyond evil.
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I don't know about "beyond evil". I agree it seems globally suboptimal, but I don't know the details of the family's financial circumstances, etc.
But my point was that maybe he would have been unhappy with the way the copyright is being used, but maybe he wouldn't be. It does seem like the family has mostly been suing in cases where someoen is in fact making money off the speech.
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I might not like the corporate use of IP law, I do recognize that IP law is still useful in protecting the originators of such work from being stolen by others for profit. There are a lot of people who use IP law to keep th
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> he'd allow it to be viewed for free on a site like
> YouTube?
Or in other words to allow Google to profit off his speech?
Maybe he would. Maybe he wouldn't. Hard to say!
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Now, Happy Birthday to You, THERE'S a sticky copyright issue.
-GiH
"a set period of time" (Score:2)
afterward your heirs get to profit from your work for a set period of time.
How is it "a set period of time" if Congress can extend it on a whim (Eldred v. Ashcroft)?
Er... He filed suit and used the proceeds. (Score:2)
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He was trying to step people MAKING money off his shit.
If his shit was given away for free, that would probably have been ok him.
Atleast i hope so, or the dude wasnt as cool as i thought.
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In 1963 it would have been very hard to propagate an important bit of information if people can't make money on the prospect.
If this attitude had prevailed a couple hundred years earlier, MLK would have been petitioning the Queen.
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He'd roll in his grave? From the article summary, it seems like he himself was suing to prevent people from spreading it for money. If he was truly egalitarian and concerned for the cause above all else, shouldn't he have allowed any distribution possible? He was pulling the same stuff himself!
I would assume that MLK sued precisely BECAUSE his speech was being sold. Because selling something automatically restricts it. If it were being distributed freely, he would probably have not objected, because everyone could access it. He was a very bright man, who I am sure understood that ideas travel best when they are free. I would also assume that he sued because he felt that his speech was not something that should be profited off of, as it would simply be yet another form of exploitation.
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Selling something that's in the public domain is perfectly fine, and it does not restrict it.
If somebody sold copies of his speech, this in no way prevents somebody else from handing it out for free, or from selling it for a cheaper price.
Need a separation of copyrights (Score:2)
There should be a right to prevent others from profiting by copying and distributing or packaging your works
without an agreement with you,
but NOT a right to prevent the material being freely copyable where no money is being exchanged and no
advertising is being glommed on.
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You'll find it very hard to sell your 'copy' while someone across the street is distributing it "with no money being exchanged."
Not on YouTube (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, the speech is not on YouTube. Not here [youtube.com], here [youtube.com], or even here [youtube.com]. It's definitely not here [youtube.com].
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None of those links appear to be to the entire speech, but rather shorts snippets with documentary info intermingled. The original statement seems to stand.
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Oh, and it isn't here either:
http://www.archive.org/details/MLKDream
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I guess the Russian band PPK never heard about this. MLK and Chernobyl [youtube.com]
You don't understand copyright (Score:2)
Typically, a speech broadcast to a large audience on radio and television (and considered instrumental in historic political changes and ranked as the most important speech in 20th century American history) would seem to be a prime candidate for the public domain.
I don't know how in the world you could think this. It's a ridiculous notion. It's pretty obvious that the speech is copyrighted, and that the owners of the copyright have the right to restrict its distribution. Anyone wishing to write about th
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It's trivial to prevent the "twisting" of Dr Kings work without turning the whole thing into a crass money grab.
King was a great man (Score:3)
Shame that 90% of his family are money grubbing whores.
Ignorant of the facts much? (Score:4, Informative)
The copyright notice, hastily scribbled onto the text of the speech by Mr. King's attorney as copies were being mimeographed in the press tent the day of the speech is one of the financial pillars that gave MLK's organization the funding to keep moving forward.
To be clear, the speech had been pressed onto records and was being sold over over the country as a single. The MLK foundation stepped in, enforced the copyright, and claimed a cut to continue Mr. King's work.
Martin Luther King, Jr. vs Mister Maestro, Inc., and 20th Century-Fox Record Corporation USDC, S.D.N.Y. (12-13-1963) 224 F.Supp.101, 140 USPQ 366. Since I'm guessing you do not actually know -- MLK died on April 4, 1968, about 5 years after you think he was "rolling over in his grave."
-GiH
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It's good that the other 10% were a bit more enlightened. ...also makes you wonder about how much people are held back by such internal forces versus external ones.
Re:King was a great man (Score:5, Insightful)
The good news is that you are judging them, not by the color of their skin, but by the quality of their character.
The bad news is the quality of their character.
I have my own Dream... (Score:2, Insightful)
I have my own dream that someday we will end this copyright foolishness. That people will realize that ideals once expressed become part of our collective humanity, and not something to be enslaved forever to the false god of capitalistic profits. I see a day when all children have the chance to make beautiful music and that music not be shacked by men who make no art. Then if we the people enjoy that music, then those children can earn a comfortable living for themselves from their endeavors.
Yes, I have se
King children care about money, not father (Score:5, Informative)
Ever since their mother's death, MLK's children have done nothing but fight over the rights in regards to their father, and the profits to be gained by selling them. For instance, in regards to a proposed MLK movie: "Bernice King and her eldest brother, Martin III, say they are "taking action" against their estranged sibling, Dexter, who is chief executive of the King estate, because he apparently decided to negotiate the entire film deal with Spielberg and Dreamworks without attempting to seek their permission." (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/the-king-family-fighting-over-the-dream-1688644.html). And notice how Dexter is the chief executive of the estate. That means he is entirely within his rights to negotiate a movie deal on behalf of the estate. Book deals and memoirs regarding MLK and Coretta King, worth millions of dollars, have been lost due to infighting and court battles (http://www.thegrio.com/top-stories/atlanta-ap----two-children.php)(http://cards6.wordpress.com/2008/11/02/in-fighting-between-king-family-tarnishes-king-legacy/).
It's really very sad. MLK certainly did a great thing for this country, centered around the march and his "I Have A Dream" speech. However, it seems his children have a dream as well: to make as much money off their father's legacy. I would be willing to bet that MLK, were he still alive, would be ashamed of how is children are acting. They are disrespecting their father and their legacy.
Re:King children care about money, not father (Score:4, Insightful)
It's ok. We judge them by the content of their character anyway.
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I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character ...
For me, that was always the climax of King's speech ... the line that made me tear up; the line that brought a lump to my throat.
<sigh>
Just another sad instance of, "Be careful what you wish for."
scumbag family (Score:3)
Anybody from Atlanta should be able to attest that Dr. King's family is a bunch of degenerates who ride on his accomplishments for their own monetary / political / social gain. Just check out the frequent lawsuits and scandals involving family members and the King Center.
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Anybody from Atlanta should be able to attest that Dr. King's family is a bunch of degenerates who ride on his accomplishments for their own monetary / political / social gain. Just check out the frequent lawsuits and scandals involving family members and the King Center.
I live 2 blocks from the MLK, jr. National Historic site, and I approve of this message.
Official text does not match the audio recording (Score:3)
FWIW, I once listened to the speech while reading along to the text of the speech as found in a book of famous speeches I had.
I learned a lesson that day which is that publishers will publish the "official" text which may differ significantly from that which was actually delivered. I was pretty annoyed because I paid good money for the book and wanted to read along to the speech.
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Did you identify a change in the message beyond the mere words, or was it just a sloppy transcription? Perhaps they published a version of the speech he wrote down beforehand, which would of course not be identical to something spoken over 17 minutes by anyone who knows well enough to not stare at the paper for the duration of the delivery.
Someone should challenge the copyright (Score:2)
It is highly disputed that MLK plagiarised the I Had A Dream speech. http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/m/mlk.htm [truthorfiction.com] I think it should be settled once and for all.
Either revoke it or respect it. I don't care which. But if King is to be a national hero, I don't think it's right that there should be profit in it for anyone -- not even his family.
New MLK speech: (Score:2)
I have a copyright nightmare ...
If they use encryption to protect it (Score:2)
What we need (Score:2)
hey, I remember that Star Trek episode! (Score:2)
More to the Story.... (Score:4, Informative)
The entry/non-entry of Dr. King's speech into the public domain is a famous case in copyright circles - and in fact, was one reason the copyright laws were changed. It's a fascinating story.
First you need to realize that prior to 1976, unless you put a copyright mark on a document and properly registed it, it was presumed to be in the public domain as soon as it was made public. This led to a number of problems and disputes, and today is widely viewed as being overly punative to people who simply forget to put the mark on a document before releasing it. Today's copyright laws eliminate the "all or nothing" nature of the 1909 Act, and sensibly declare that copyright rests with the author, regardless of whether they properly marked it.
Second, there's an interesting history behind the I Have a Dream speech. While the factual accounts of exactly what happened differ, Dr. King and his associates apparently distributed advance copies of the speech without the copyright mark on them to a group of journalists. Recognizing that this was a serious error, others within Dr. King's circle reportedly re-collected each of the advance copies, and then redistributed them with the copyright mark hand written on the document. So there was a factual question as to whether the textual copy of the speech was put into the public domain or not registered with the copyright office correctly.
There was less dispute over the video and audio. As others have noted, Dr. King improvised/departed from the prepared text a number of times. So there was an argument that, even if Dr. King had lost the copyright on the original text (which is itself debatable), he maintained the copyright on the "performance" of the speach, and was thus entitled to a separate copyright (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_of_Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.,_Inc._v._CBS,_Inc. [wikipedia.org]).
I also believe that the speech is freely licensed to anyone engaging in educational activities - so it's not quite as eggregious on the part of the family as many have suggested.
Jesus! (Score:4, Funny)
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FOX: We have a congress. Your move.
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MLK: I have a dream.
FOX: We have a congress. Your move.
Are you blaming Congress for the copyright that King himself took out? And that his family still holds?
King didn't have to copyright his speeches. But he did. And he did it to make money. If you think there's fault in this, then put it squarely where it belongs: King himself, and later, his family.
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Yeah. Except the description in the TFS anyway, what started it all, wasn't draconian copyright law. It was a group trying to make a profit off of someone elses work without compensating them.
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Not to be mean or tawdry, but I would assume the answer to that question is "women."
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Also, at the request of the King family, his FBI file is sealed until 2027.. what does a Reverend have to hide?
If FBI violated your privacy and concocted a file, do you mind if i take a peek?
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The thing is, your company probably wasn't selling it as a standalone item, like the companies mentioned in TFS.
Those lawsuits were basically making a profit off of someone elses work, without compensating that person. Your company may be using as an aid to making their profit, but I'm sure they put a whole lot more effort into it, and the speech isn't the centerpiece or primary portion of the class.
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Why should a speech be a part of public domain?
Poltical speech made in public by political figure should not protected by copyright. Full stop.
This is not in the public's interest, as exercising copyrights on it limits the public's access to political speech. Political speech is one of the most protected forms of speech, as its essential to democracy.
That is why the speech SHOULD NOT be protected by copyright.
But what argument for protecting is there? Bearing in mind that the purpose of copyright was primar