Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' Video Taken Down On Internet Freedom Day

from the more-like-a-nightmare dept

We've been talking a lot today about Internet Freedom Day, and the anniversary of the SOPA/PIPA blackout. The folks at Fight for the Future noticed the proximity of Internet Freedom Day to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and decided an interesting form of celebrating internet freedom would be to share a video of MLK's famous "I have a dream..." speech. As you may or may not know, Martin Luther King Jr.'s heirs have been ridiculously aggressive in claiming copyright over every aspect of anything related to MLK -- and they seek large sums of money from people for doing things like quoting him. When the MLK Memorial was recently built in Washington DC, the family was able to get nearly $800,000 just to use his words and likeness.

The FftF video was not just the MLK video, but contained some additional explanation of how expanding copyright laws could impact people for doing something as simple as sharing the MLK video -- and then it included some of the speech. So I guess it should come as little surprise that the "I have a dream..." video that FftF was urging people to share has already been taken down (it's unclear if the takedown was due to a notice or Vimeo being proactive). It seems fairly ridiculous that on Internet Freedom Day, and just before MLK Day, we're still dealing with takedowns on such powerful words.

Filed Under: copyright, fight for the future, i have a dream, internet freedom, martin luther king jr., takedowns

The Internet Puts Up A Billboard In Front Of Lamar Smith's Office: Don't Mess With The Internet

from the will-he-notice? dept

You may recall that, back in March, on a whim based on a discussion at SXSW, Alexis Ohanian and Erik Martin (from Reddit) teamed up with Holmes Wilson (from Fight for the Future) to crowdfund a billboard to go up in Lamar Smith's district in Austin. It turns out that you internet people don't mind paying after all, and helped fund two billboards which have now gone up in Smith's district, including one across the street from his office in San Antonio, and a second one on "Lamar Blvd" in Austin Oh, and Ohanian's BreadPig is selling a "Don't Mess with the Internet" t-shirt, where each sale will help fund Fight for the Future and its new Internet Defense League -- which you should join, in part because if you do cool things to help defend the internet, they hand out totally awesome medals.

Filed Under: alexis ohanian, austin, erik martin, fight for the future, holmes wilson, lamar smith, reddit, san antonio, sxsw