• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

World News Center

Everything you want to know about anything that's meaningful

  • News
  • Reviews
  • About
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / He Had A Dream And You Can’t Share It

He Had A Dream And You Can’t Share It

August 28, 2013 by

Much has changed and much has not.
Much has changed and much has not.
Fifty years ago today I was pooping in a diaper and eating yummy mommy milk. In other words I was not contributing much to society. Such could not be said about Dr. Martin Luther King. I have written about him before. Not many people know that without Dr. King Star Trek may not have been worth watching. Simply put, no Uhura = no famous kiss which would probably mean no syndication and reruns. Also I’ve written how, froa strictly critical point of view, he actually write some better speeches than I Have a Dream. But we live in a world where lives are distilled to a sentence or two and then we move on. So, with Dr. King we get Selma, I Have a Dream and the assassination. Since that is so why aren’t people glued to WTTW watching the speech in its entirety? Because you can’t.

Josh Schiller, from the Washington Post, has the whole story.

Fifty years ago this week, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech. But in coverage of events celebrating its anniversary, the entirety of King’s address will rarely be reprinted, if at all, nor will viewers see footage of his speech delivered in full.

A few months after King delivered the speech, he sent a copy of the address to the U.S. Copyright office and listed the remarks as a “work not reproduced for sale.” In legal terms, this is also known as an unpublished work. He subsequently sued to enjoin two publishers from distributing phonographic reproductions of the address. One of the defendants, 20th Century Fox, had filmed and broadcast all of the speeches at the March on Washington at the request of the march’s organizers. From that material, it had reproduced the phonographs that were the subject of the injunction. But a court ruled that, although King had addressed a large public audience in an unrestricted public forum, reproduction without authorization was an infringement of King’s copyright. Performance of the speech, like the performance of a song or play in a public space, did not create a general waiver of King’s right to limit reproduction under the 1909 Copyright Act.

Since 1963, King and, posthumously, his estate have strictly enforced control over use of that speech and King’s likeness. A few years ago, the estate received more than $700,000from the nonprofit foundation that created and built the monument to King on the Mall in order to use his words and image. The only legal way to reproduce King’s work — at least until it enters the public domain in 2038 — is to pay for a licensing fee, rates for which vary. (Individuals visiting the King Center can buy a recording of the “I have a dream” speech for $20. Licenses for media outlets run into the thousands.)

Although it has been the subject of at least two lawsuits — the King estate sued CBS and USA Today for their use of the speech, reaching undisclosed settlements — a court has never examined whether and under what circumstances the “I have a dream” speech may be used without authorization in what’s considered a “fair use” exception.

Courts look at four factors for fair use: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is for commercial or for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. There are no bright-line rules for fair use; each case must be examined on its facts. Courts have frequently recognized that fair use is central to the “progress of science and advancement of the useful arts” that is the principal tenant upon which copyright laws were created.

Recent jurisprudence has focused on the first and fourth factors, looking primarily at whether the secondary work that cites the material is “transformative.” The threshold is whether the copyrighted material is used as an element, or ingredient, of a new work created for a different purpose and a different audience and whether a new aesthetic or further expression can be perceived by a reasonable observer.

In an important case in 2006, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit found that a biographer of the Grateful Dead had made fair use of copyrighted concert posters and tickets whose illustrations are the instantly recognizable sort that observers associate with the band and the 1960s and ’70s. The appropriated images “serve as histroadcast the speech ade orical artifacts graphically representing the fact of significant Grateful Dead concert events selected” by the author, the court said, and this use did not harm the first creator’s economic incentives.

Playing a recording of King’s speech as thousands march on the Mall, as happened this past weekend, is surely the sort of non-commercial, educational and historical use that Congress and the courts have frequently and rightly protected.

One can imagine many transformative uses of the “I have a dream” speech — from posting it in social media platforms for people to share and remark upon, to quoting the text in song lyrics or in a film, documentary or other artistic work to conjure the strivings for social equality that were the essence of King’s speech and to celebrate a sense of shared accomplishment that followed.

As an attorney, I believe in respect for the law and observing copyright restrictions. But when it comes to observing the anniversary of such a public moment, one hopes that fair use will allow current generations to appreciate what happened 50 years ago this week and why it was such a moment in American history.

The public benefit of access to historical artifacts such as King’s speech is undeniable. Any restriction on public access to the content of such a historical artifact should be enforced with caution.

While I agree with him that this is a historically important speech it is also the sole property of Dr. King’s estate. The television stations that broadcast the speech made money. The original recordings made money. And so on. There is no reason Dr. King’s family shouldn’t reap the same benefits of the same source material.

That being said, there seems to be no reason not to have some fun with the whole thing.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
Visit us on Rebel Mouse for even more fun!
contact Bill McCormick

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar

Archives

  • October 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • December 2021
  • October 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • November 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010

Copyright © 2023 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in