MLK Jr.'s Sons Celebrate 50th Anniversary Of 'I Have A Dream' By Suing His Daughter

from the making-dad-proud-the-only-way-they-know-how dept

Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream, a dream that one day his sons would sue his daughter over the control of his body of work -- and on the fiftieth anniversary of his famous speech. As he boldly stated 50 years ago, the only way to ensure racial harmony is through familial infighting.

If Dr. King were alive today, along with having to offer his opinion on Miley Cyrus, he'd be shocked to hear his famous speech paraphrased this way -- and his legacy being handled in this fashion. He would also likely be astonished that each anniversary of his speech is marked by vanishing Youtube videos and the arrival of DMCA notices and cease and desist orders.

But that's what we have, thanks to his legacy being "safeguarded" by siblings who sue each other.

In a lawsuit filed Aug. 28 in Fulton County Court, the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr. Inc. -- run by King's sons, Martin Luther King III and Dexter King -- claims it licensed the civil rights activist's intellectual property rights to The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in March 2009.

The King Center's CEO is Bernice King, the youngest child of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in 1968.

Dr. King's estate claims it supports the center's mission to maintain King's legacy and has been the nonprofit's single largest individual donor for the past decade.

"Supports it," but only up to a point, apparently. Not that Bernice King is exactly blameless.

[I]t says the center has been careless with Dr. King's intellectual property, which includes the leader's "name, image, recorded voice and memorabilia," along with "all works of authorship ... including writings, speeches, sermons, letters and copyrights," trademark interests, and "the remains and coffin contained within the crypt of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."

The estate says it conducted an audit in April, which "revealed that the current manner of care and storage of the physical property by defendant is unacceptable." It claims the items are "susceptible to damage by fire, water, mold, and mildew, as well as theft."

King's sons say they tried to work with their sister to fix the problems, but the relationship "has recently become strained, resulting in a total breakdown in communication and transparency."

So, on one hand, we have King's estate, which has never missed an opportunity to capitalize on the "I have a dream" speech and, on the other, someone who clearly doesn't value what they have. If nothing else, Bernice King should put her soon-to-be-gone collection the hands of people (other than her siblings) who know the value of returning certain "property" to the public. (Perhaps someone like this history professor:)

And King's estate holders need to return a speech given publicly back to public and stop turning this momentuous event into nothing more than a series of transactions. His sons have to have some idea of how the public views their mercenary exploits. They can't be that obtuse, can they? Or do they think their father would be proud to know his voice and likeness is more likely to be used to emancipate people from lousy wireless service than to be spread throughout the internet in order to inspire new generations of Americans?

Filed Under: copyright, i have a dream, lawsuits, martin luther king jr.

Let Freedom Ka-Ching! On The 50th Anniversary Of 'I Have A Dream,' AT&T Can Use The Speech To Sell Phones, But You Can't Post It

from the belongs-in-the-public-domain dept

As you hopefully are aware, today is the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's powerful, moving and memorable I have a dream... speech. In a just world, that speech would be in the public domain. And, legally, it might be. While King did apparently send a copy of the speech to the Copyright Office, he did so as an "unpublished work." There has been a dispute, then, about the speech itself, since that would be a publication. His estate, however, has argued that the speech was not a "general publication," but rather a "limited publication" and thus King retained a common law copyright -- and an appeals court appeared to agree, but the lawsuit over this was settled without a final ruling, and no one has challenged it since. However, King's estate has been ridiculously aggressive in trying to lock up his speeches and take down videos commemorating his talks, with a focus on this momentous speech.

Of course, they're more than happy to license the speech to the highest bidder -- which is why the speech has been used to sell cars and mobile phone service -- but if you were to post it yourself to share it and honor his memory, expect a DMCA takedown. This should bother you. The speech and the legacy of Dr. King are not available for you and I to use, but giant telcos can pay thousands of dollars for the privilege. While there's a strong fair use argument that the speech can be used as "a historical artifact" in such situations as today, very few people feel like testing that theory in court.

Law professor James Boyle finds the whole situation quite ridiculous, and has expressed his dismay with the fact that this speech is now tied to commercialism, rather than for the celebration of civil rights. In response, he's penned a "revised" version of the speech, entitled, (EM)I Has A Dream in honor of the fact that the King family has partnered with EMI to "administer" the copyright on the speech. The whole thing is worth reading, but here's a snippet:

Five tens of years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, wrote this speech. This momentous oratory came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of African-Americans. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. Fifty years later, that speech still is not free. Fifty years later, the life of the speech is still sadly crippled by the manacles of corporate ownership and the chains of take-down letters. Fifty years later, the speech lives on a lonely island of property rights in the midst of a vast ocean of the culture it influenced. And I say, let freedom ring. Not the chirpy ring of the Cingular wireless phone his words were actually used to advertise, but the idea of freedom for which he stood.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and actually use the words of this speech.

Then, and only then, we will be able to say, “We have a dream. And no one owns it. Free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Today should be a day on which we celebrate this speech. It's a depressing statement of the state of copyright law that doing so in the most appropriate way may actually be against the law.

Filed Under: commercialism, copyright, historical artifacts, i have a dream, martin luther king jr., public domain

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