The article mostly covers the relevant law and how the copyright ownership has evolved.
I kept thinking about what we could do now. I doubt the copyright owner thinks about copyright laws like we do -- freedom, culture evolving, etc. Other posts on this thread say "Martin Luther King's descendants ... are disgracing the man's heritage," they probably don't know our perspective. They haven't read The Right to Read -- http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html. They probably intend to keep others from messing it up.
Instead of insulting them, we might try to educate them on our perspective and see if they might be persuaded to release it under the GPL or something similar. If Sony has it, they may be unwilling to change, but maybe the family?
If an inflexible conglomerate already has it, what can we learn from them about getting the owners of rights to culturally important copyrighted works first? There are more of us. Why did they get there first? How can we do better next time?
I want copyright law changed, but in the meantime, this work and many like it could be GPL'ed. Why don't we make that happen?
FWIW, King's speech contains close to 40% repurposed or borrowed material (from the Declaration of Independence, the song "My Country 'Tis of Thee," cribs from previous speeches by Archibald Carey, etc.). I say this not to diminish the accomplishment, triumph, or historical significance of Dr. King's famous speech, but rather, to raise the point that it's a very nuanced copyright matter.
Am I allowed to copyright a work derived from a collage of other people's works? If I incorporated one of your posts into a blog post of mine, could I copyright the entirety of the blog post?
According to the letter of the law, King's estate should have been entitled only to copyright the portions of the "I Have a Dream" speech that contained 100% original material [1]. Yet these are not the most recognizable or famous portions of the speech, and they're not the portions King's estate has often licensed out to advertisers, etc. Almost all of the words most famously associated with the "I Have a Dream" speech are borrowed from other source material. And, unless I'm missing something -- I'm not a lawyer, so that's possible -- they should not have been granted to King's estate in the first place. Perhaps the current laws on the books took effect after that granting?
[1]From 17 U.S.C. SS 103(b): "The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material."
MLK's descendants have turned his speech and legacy into a commodity, sued each other, stolen money from his estate and setup businesses solely for capitalizing on the speech.
Something tells me they would not be interested in releasing the speech under the GPL.
> Instead of insulting them, we might try to educate them on our perspective and see if they might be persuaded to release it under the GPL or something similar. If Sony has it, they may be unwilling to change, but maybe the family?
Ahahaha. No, you would have better luck persuading Sony than the family. The family is very clear: MLK is a goldmine they will exploit as much as possible. This is the same family that has so far made somewhere around a million dollars in licensing and consulting fees from the DC memorial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Memori...).
The author's argument appears to be that Dr. King's speech is too important to be protected by copyright. The author provides very little to support this position other than an appeal to emotion.
Lacking support with relevant facts, details, and rationales, the argument is, for me, entirely unpersuasive.
Although I am certainly not an expert on the history of Civil Rights in the 1960's, I was curious as to who Bill Rutherford was and what he did. Before I found much I came across the source from which the author lifted:
>“I think Martin Luther King must be spinning in his grave,” Bill Rutherford, who was executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference when King was murdered, told 60 Minutes. “He gave his life for his ideas of justice, peace and love. He attempted his entire life to communicate ideas for free. To communicate, not to sell,” he says.
I think this is the first time I see YouTube embeds used this way. The article contains several of them -- non-functional and displaying a "removed due to third party copyright claim" message -- all to drive the article's point.
I wonder what legal contortions were necessary to argue that "the speech was a performance distributed to the news media and not the public." That's some of the purest baloney I've ever heard. If giving a speech to a fifth of a million people on the steps of one of the most famous public monuments in the world, in one of the most famous public spaces in the world, doesn't count as "public," what possibly could?
Maybe the "not the public" summation is a poor one.
I've often thought it would be beneficial to the cause of history and governmental transparency to get more videos, recordings, and photographs of our important leaders (presidential candidates, et al) into the public domain. I had thought it was something a non-profit, a quasi-governmental corporation like PBS, or a governmental department could organize. But I don't know how copyright law interacts with public performances (obviously).
Time magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi,"
Yikes. He really was a progressive leader. Makes you wonder in perspective how we are going to someday see people for supporting Gitmo or giving gays "some rights" but not all rights.
Dr. King was not a public official and was not giving testimony. His speech is no more a candidate for the public domain than the Beach Boys' Fourth of July, 1980 rendition of Barbara Ann on the National Mall is.
IANAL, etc. but I believe this isn't exactly as cut and dried as you make it out to be, or at least wasn't as cut and dried when the King estate took it to court. The legal analysis section on Wikipedia^ describes the difference between "general" and "limited" publication, and that if it was a general publication the estate would not have a copyright claim.
Can anyone with more knowledge of copyright law explain this? Are televised speeches usually public domain?
Right. Because "Barbara Ann" was a key moment in the American reconsideration of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Civil War. "Barbara Ann" and "I Have A Dream" are equally important to an understanding of equality in America.
That's alright. No one wants to hear the whole speech anyway - too boring and dated.
The great part ("I have a dream...") of the speech is available everywhere without paying. It's the truly memorable part of the speech. In fact, I'd bet that 99% who have heard of the speech have heard only that part of the speech.
I would bet a lot of money that every single one of those photos and video clips was properly licensed by Apple. It's not even that complicated a commercial for that sort of thing--compare to the first iPhone ad, which probably had 2-3 times as many copyrighted clips:
In the USA (and most other jurisdictions, really) as soon as you write it down, you have the copyright on it. You also have some control over "derivative works" including any copies of the "performance" of the speech. In music, for example, you would need to pay royalties to the songwriter for publicly playing a recording of their song, no matter who actually sang the song.
Well, the article actually explains how it was copyrighted. Basically the King estate sued CBS and the court determined they had a claim.
"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 ..... the judge determined that the speech was a performance distributed to the news media and not the public, making it a “limited” as opposed to a “general” publication. That meant the speech, like other “performances” on CBS, was not in the public domain. That meant the King estate had the right to claim copyright"
>It's amazing how the majority of our history is downright whitewashed. The more you look into something, the more you see a completly different story.
No you don't.
People are complicated. Everyone thinks and says things they would never say to lots of other people. That does not make you a different person. It just makes you normal. Like everyone he could be angry, emotional, etc. But as long as you act consistently, you are what you do. The stupid shit you occasionally say in private does not make you "different".
This is interesting on a number of levels. I'm part of the minority around here that is in favor of copyright but don't write me off as a knee-jerk reaction to my stance.
An article like this could easily become a rallying cry for abolishing copyright but when you dig deeper it really doesn't lend itself to total copyright abolishment as much as you'd think.
It's interesting when you bear in mind that Dr. Martin Luther King held copyright on this speech and used the copyright laws to control how his speech was used. The way he wielded the power afforded to him by copyright is a great argument for copyright, not against it! If we make some conservative assumptions based on his actions and what we know of the man then it's safe to say he would allow the speech to become part of PBS documentaries but not used in corporate advertisements. Isnt it fair to believe that most of us these days would agree that his Dream speech be used in historical documentaries and other works that promote his legacy but be upset if we saw that speech used in a Nike commercial?
What I'm getting at here is that copyright itself isn't bad. It's how it is used that can be harmful but not always. Using copyright to keep MLK's legacy from being sullied is a legitimate and reasonable use for copyright. This particular case reminds us that copyright can be used for good too. If we fast forward to today and consider the King estate's attempt to make money from Dr. King's legacy we see what I'd call a gray area. Not everyone would want to see money being made in MLK's name. But far more people don't want to see the right to his words and likeness belonging to a corporation like EMI.
I want to encourage all of us to take a less extreme, more balanced perspective on this. Laws like SOPA/PIPA have backed us into a corner where we're forced to take extreme positions against extreme laws but here amongst friends, why not discuss this in a balanced way and save the extremism for fighting those with equally extreme stances on the other side? I do support copyright but I don't support it in its entirety. This story is a prime example of why the length of copyright needs to be limited. But this isn't only about copyright. We forget that other US laws in combination with copyright are what cause some of the trouble. Corporations should not be considered people. I think taking a stance that promotes complete abolishment of copyright is like chopping off your head to cure a headache.
The "I Have a Dream" speech should be in the public domain by now, there's no question about it. Copyright has hurt us in this case but while Dr. King was alive it had every opportunity to help us. It could have ensured that his speech wasn't taken advantage of. We seem to forget that copyright helps us promote freedom just as much as it can be used to restrict it. It can help ensure not just freedom as in liberty but freedom as in gratis, for free, free beer, pay zero moneys. We can't stop people from using copyright in ways we don't approve of without abolishing it but abolishing it opens another can of worms. So instead let's focus on trying to make copyright a little more sane, less biased, by scaling it back instead of ripping out our hearts to cure high cholesterol (I didn't want to use the chopping heads to cure headaches metaphor again, hopefully that wasn't too awkward a metaphor).
I don't think the majority here advocates abolishing copyright (although a poll would clear that up). Many of us make their living due in part to copyright protections, nor do I think a sane person would think it could be abolished unless society changes radically.
I think many of us object to copyright extremism, as you point out. Dr. King certainly would never have guessed that someone could be extradited from another country to face jail time for publishing a link to an unauthorized copy of his speech. Yet here we are.
If we make some conservative assumptions based on his actions and what we know of the man then it's safe to say he would allow the speech to become part of PBS documentaries but not used in corporate advertisements.
King's speeches are used in corporate ads. Did you watch the embedded videos?
Likeness rights, not copyrights, are what prevent the images of public figures from being used commercially in ways that imply endorsement. If I take a photo of the President (or any other famous person, in public or in private), I own the copyright for that photo. I can sell copies of it for a profit. But it can't be used in a way that implies endorsement. I need a model release for that.
I'm not a lawyer, but I believe it would be perfectly legally possible for the King estate to release all aspects of the speech into the public domain and still prohibit the use of King's image or voice in advertisements. Or it would have been.
[+] [-] spodek|14 years ago|reply
I kept thinking about what we could do now. I doubt the copyright owner thinks about copyright laws like we do -- freedom, culture evolving, etc. Other posts on this thread say "Martin Luther King's descendants ... are disgracing the man's heritage," they probably don't know our perspective. They haven't read The Right to Read -- http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html. They probably intend to keep others from messing it up.
Instead of insulting them, we might try to educate them on our perspective and see if they might be persuaded to release it under the GPL or something similar. If Sony has it, they may be unwilling to change, but maybe the family?
If an inflexible conglomerate already has it, what can we learn from them about getting the owners of rights to culturally important copyrighted works first? There are more of us. Why did they get there first? How can we do better next time?
I want copyright law changed, but in the meantime, this work and many like it could be GPL'ed. Why don't we make that happen?
[+] [-] jonnathanson|14 years ago|reply
Am I allowed to copyright a work derived from a collage of other people's works? If I incorporated one of your posts into a blog post of mine, could I copyright the entirety of the blog post?
According to the letter of the law, King's estate should have been entitled only to copyright the portions of the "I Have a Dream" speech that contained 100% original material [1]. Yet these are not the most recognizable or famous portions of the speech, and they're not the portions King's estate has often licensed out to advertisers, etc. Almost all of the words most famously associated with the "I Have a Dream" speech are borrowed from other source material. And, unless I'm missing something -- I'm not a lawyer, so that's possible -- they should not have been granted to King's estate in the first place. Perhaps the current laws on the books took effect after that granting?
[1]From 17 U.S.C. SS 103(b): "The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material."
[+] [-] JS_startup|14 years ago|reply
Something tells me they would not be interested in releasing the speech under the GPL.
[+] [-] gwern|14 years ago|reply
Ahahaha. No, you would have better luck persuading Sony than the family. The family is very clear: MLK is a goldmine they will exploit as much as possible. This is the same family that has so far made somewhere around a million dollars in licensing and consulting fees from the DC memorial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Memori...).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Memori...
[+] [-] brudgers|14 years ago|reply
Lacking support with relevant facts, details, and rationales, the argument is, for me, entirely unpersuasive.
Although I am certainly not an expert on the history of Civil Rights in the 1960's, I was curious as to who Bill Rutherford was and what he did. Before I found much I came across the source from which the author lifted:
>“I think Martin Luther King must be spinning in his grave,” Bill Rutherford, who was executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference when King was murdered, told 60 Minutes. “He gave his life for his ideas of justice, peace and love. He attempted his entire life to communicate ideas for free. To communicate, not to sell,” he says.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-319500.html
[+] [-] brown9-2|14 years ago|reply
What about mentioning how often the speech is cited, how common place phrases from it are, etc.?
[+] [-] godDLL|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VMG|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lagged2Death|14 years ago|reply
Maybe the "not the public" summation is a poor one.
I've often thought it would be beneficial to the cause of history and governmental transparency to get more videos, recordings, and photographs of our important leaders (presidential candidates, et al) into the public domain. I had thought it was something a non-profit, a quasi-governmental corporation like PBS, or a governmental department could organize. But I don't know how copyright law interacts with public performances (obviously).
[+] [-] Create|14 years ago|reply
https://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/21/dr_martin_luther_king...
[+] [-] ck2|14 years ago|reply
Yikes. He really was a progressive leader. Makes you wonder in perspective how we are going to someday see people for supporting Gitmo or giving gays "some rights" but not all rights.
[+] [-] brudgers|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ck2|14 years ago|reply
Would MLK want people to pay $20 to watch his speech?
[+] [-] spacemanaki|14 years ago|reply
Can anyone with more knowledge of copyright law explain this? Are televised speeches usually public domain?
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_of_Martin_Luther_King,_J...
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] chernevik|14 years ago|reply
Got it.
[+] [-] ck2|14 years ago|reply
Sorry if it makes less sense now but the article is a worthy read.
In a nutshell, you won't be able to watch the video for free until 2038 in the USA
[+] [-] scq|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brudgers|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giardini|14 years ago|reply
The great part ("I have a dream...") of the speech is available everywhere without paying. It's the truly memorable part of the speech. In fact, I'd bet that 99% who have heard of the speech have heard only that part of the speech.
[+] [-] tpatke|14 years ago|reply
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Different
[+] [-] snowwrestler|14 years ago|reply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyYloJyq9M
[+] [-] rthomas6|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twodayslate|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp332|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spacemanaki|14 years ago|reply
"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 ..... the judge determined that the speech was a performance distributed to the news media and not the public, making it a “limited” as opposed to a “general” publication. That meant the speech, like other “performances” on CBS, was not in the public domain. That meant the King estate had the right to claim copyright"
This is relatively readable: http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/19989079.MAN.pdf
[+] [-] riffic|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bh42222|14 years ago|reply
No you don't.
People are complicated. Everyone thinks and says things they would never say to lots of other people. That does not make you a different person. It just makes you normal. Like everyone he could be angry, emotional, etc. But as long as you act consistently, you are what you do. The stupid shit you occasionally say in private does not make you "different".
[+] [-] billpatrianakos|14 years ago|reply
An article like this could easily become a rallying cry for abolishing copyright but when you dig deeper it really doesn't lend itself to total copyright abolishment as much as you'd think.
It's interesting when you bear in mind that Dr. Martin Luther King held copyright on this speech and used the copyright laws to control how his speech was used. The way he wielded the power afforded to him by copyright is a great argument for copyright, not against it! If we make some conservative assumptions based on his actions and what we know of the man then it's safe to say he would allow the speech to become part of PBS documentaries but not used in corporate advertisements. Isnt it fair to believe that most of us these days would agree that his Dream speech be used in historical documentaries and other works that promote his legacy but be upset if we saw that speech used in a Nike commercial?
What I'm getting at here is that copyright itself isn't bad. It's how it is used that can be harmful but not always. Using copyright to keep MLK's legacy from being sullied is a legitimate and reasonable use for copyright. This particular case reminds us that copyright can be used for good too. If we fast forward to today and consider the King estate's attempt to make money from Dr. King's legacy we see what I'd call a gray area. Not everyone would want to see money being made in MLK's name. But far more people don't want to see the right to his words and likeness belonging to a corporation like EMI.
I want to encourage all of us to take a less extreme, more balanced perspective on this. Laws like SOPA/PIPA have backed us into a corner where we're forced to take extreme positions against extreme laws but here amongst friends, why not discuss this in a balanced way and save the extremism for fighting those with equally extreme stances on the other side? I do support copyright but I don't support it in its entirety. This story is a prime example of why the length of copyright needs to be limited. But this isn't only about copyright. We forget that other US laws in combination with copyright are what cause some of the trouble. Corporations should not be considered people. I think taking a stance that promotes complete abolishment of copyright is like chopping off your head to cure a headache.
The "I Have a Dream" speech should be in the public domain by now, there's no question about it. Copyright has hurt us in this case but while Dr. King was alive it had every opportunity to help us. It could have ensured that his speech wasn't taken advantage of. We seem to forget that copyright helps us promote freedom just as much as it can be used to restrict it. It can help ensure not just freedom as in liberty but freedom as in gratis, for free, free beer, pay zero moneys. We can't stop people from using copyright in ways we don't approve of without abolishing it but abolishing it opens another can of worms. So instead let's focus on trying to make copyright a little more sane, less biased, by scaling it back instead of ripping out our hearts to cure high cholesterol (I didn't want to use the chopping heads to cure headaches metaphor again, hopefully that wasn't too awkward a metaphor).
[+] [-] sehugg|14 years ago|reply
I think many of us object to copyright extremism, as you point out. Dr. King certainly would never have guessed that someone could be extradited from another country to face jail time for publishing a link to an unauthorized copy of his speech. Yet here we are.
[+] [-] Lagged2Death|14 years ago|reply
King's speeches are used in corporate ads. Did you watch the embedded videos?
Likeness rights, not copyrights, are what prevent the images of public figures from being used commercially in ways that imply endorsement. If I take a photo of the President (or any other famous person, in public or in private), I own the copyright for that photo. I can sell copies of it for a profit. But it can't be used in a way that implies endorsement. I need a model release for that.
I'm not a lawyer, but I believe it would be perfectly legally possible for the King estate to release all aspects of the speech into the public domain and still prohibit the use of King's image or voice in advertisements. Or it would have been.
[+] [-] serge2k|14 years ago|reply
You write something it should be protected for life, but thats it. Anything else is unreasonable.
[+] [-] giardini|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]