How IP Laws Have Locked Up Martin Luther King's Brilliance
from the sadness dept
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day -- and there are many reasons to celebrate his legacy. But one thing that should not be celebrated is what his heirs have done with his words ever since. In the past, we've discussed how his heirs have done everything they can to try to use intellectual property laws to lock up MLK Jr.'s legacy -- and set up a toll booth to charge anyone for making use of them in any way, shape or form. The most recent episode of On The Media explored this... and also talked about how most of King's speeches were actually built off the works of others, but then (obviously) turned into something much more powerful through his detailed study and understanding of how to preach. It's a fascinating story... made ridiculously annoying by his heirs' desire to lock up and charge for King's legacy.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: copyright, legacy, locked up, martin luther king jr.
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A dream
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Travesty
Even though the use of these clips is almost certainly Fair Use under any rational adjudication, threats of fines in the tens of millions have forced producers to grovel at the feet of lazy heirs that seek only to extract monopoly rents for history that belongs to all of us, equally.
That Dr. King's heirs claim to protect his legacy while selling clips of his famous speech for wireless ads while documentaries and news programs that seek to educate the nation's citizens are forced to do without is beyond shameful. That his greedy heirs seek to monetize the holiday created for one of our nation's true giants harms not only the memory of a great man but also impugns the holiday in his honor. Instead of all being able to celebrate his legacy as Dr. King would have no doubt wanted, the misguided heirs have set up toll booths and diminished Dr. King's legacy as his words no longer ring out from mountaintops.
Free at last. Free at last. When the public domain returns, Dr. King will be free at last.
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Re: A dream
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Re: Travesty
This should be a warning to future leaders that care about humanity to not make a will transferring everything they did to the public domain after their death or have others twist their legacy into something else entirely.
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Re: Re: Travesty
Eh, what? Dr King's will put everything he did into the public domain? Citation needed. If true, then surely that would stop his heirs from charging. So, how come they can still charge?
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There is no colour.
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http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/1/16/copyright-king-why-the-i-have-a-dream-speech-sti ll-isn-t-free
Is this indeed fact?
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Oh wait, the guy who was producing those works has been dead for years.
So ummm, why does copyright last so long again? I sure don't see it motivating the "owners" to make anything new and the original content creator is not going to make anything new.
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Or old works!
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Payoff
It is sad to see 2 generations of that family feel that they have the right to freeload off of one speech. That they should never have to work a job, be competent or do anything to contribute to society because they had a relative give an awesome speech over 40 years ago.
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There is no colour.
Spoken like a 0xFFFFFF guy!
/joke
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I have a dream
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Re: Payoff
However, just because one person in a group says something stupid does not, in the absence of evidence, mean they all are guilty of same.
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