You can also sing the happy birthday song for him on MLK's birthday, in defiance of copyright.
This is even more apt than you think:
"In the 1987 documentary Eyes on the Prize about the US Civil Rights Movement, there was a birthday party scene in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s discouragement began to lift. After its initial release, the film was unavailable for sale or broadcast for many years because of the cost of clearing many copyrights, of which "Happy Birthday to You" was one. Grants in 2005 for copyright clearances[15] have allowed PBS to rebroadcast the film as recently as February 2008.[16]"
Close. Just signing the song doesn't violate copyright any more than reading a book out loud to yourself would. Singing it in a public place or making a public performance on YouTube for instance though, that's where this is more likely to come into play.
Still, your point on the absurdity of this is well taken.
While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor and organized the Poor People’s Campaign to address issues of economic justice. Dr. King was also a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy and the Vietnam War.
In his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, which he delivered at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4th, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated, Dr. King called the United States, quote, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” Time magazine called the speech “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.” The Washington Post said King, quote, “diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”
Today, we’ll let you decide. We play an excerpt of Dr. King’s speech “Beyond Vietnam.”
One of the most famous (perhaps the most famous) speeches in our televised history...and now come to think of it, I don't think I've ever heard it in its entirety.
I suggest you acquire an MP3 version of it. Quite a powerful speech. I have been studying it for quite a while and learning about what makes it such an amazing powerhouse.
That was the first time I've seen it in its entirety as well. I'm glad to finally have the opportunity to do so.
It's definitely one of most moving speeches of all time, but being a pessimist, I can't help but wonder what Dr. King would have thought about equal rights for atheists, homosexuals, and women.
This is most definitely not "fair use", as is determined by case law, even as profit motive plays a part in that judgment. Fair use protects such scenarios as me replaying a part of a broadcast in order to critique it (as the Daily Show does -- and definitely for a profit purpose) or to educate.
The most relaxed guidelines are probably in the educational domain. But even then, you, as a teacher, can't just tape the "I Have a Dream" broadcast and show it in its entirety from year to year:
> Nonprofit educational institutions can record television programs transmitted by network television and cable stations. The institution can keep the tape for 45 days, but can only use it for instructional purposes during the first ten of the 45 days. After the first ten days, the video recording can only be used for teacher evaluation purposes, to determine whether or not to include the broadcast program in the teaching curriculum. If the teacher wants to keep it within the curriculum, he or she must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The recording may be played once by each individual teacher in the course of related teaching activities in classrooms and similar places devoted to instruction (including formalized home instruction). The recorded program can be repeated once if necessary, although there are no standards for determining what is and is not necessary. After 45 days, the recording must be erased or destroyed.
I'm not saying I "like" how "I Have a Dream" is under lock-and-key...I'm just annoyed at how people interpret the "fair" in "fair use" as, "It's ok as long as I'm being altruistic and a good person about it"
In Cohen v. California, the "Fuck the Draft" case,* it's suggested that there's really no equivalent alternative for the political message other than the phrase "fuck the draft." This lack of alternatives drives, in part, the court's scrutiny on the obscenity laws at play.
I wish that line of analysis was extended more liberally into other areas of 1st amendment law, the "is there another equivalent way to deliver this political message?" test.
It could be used as the foundation for a new plank of fair use, and in this case, a claim that there's no other way to fully illustrate what is lost by expansive copyright restrictions on politically relevant media without showing the most powerful clips burdened by these protections.
* Copyrights are supposed to be an incentive to create. One that lasts unto your grandchildren are a dis-incentive, because not only are you not creating any more once you are dead, neither are your descendants. Copyright should last half a working lifetime (20 years), to encourage people to continue to create.
* Someone who makes copies without permission should pay a fine, but it should be at the regular royalty rate for the item x copies made. So upload a song, it's iTunes price x number of downloads, with perhaps a factor of 3 penalty to discourage doing it, not $150,000 per copy.
I am sorry if I am mistaken here since I am not American.
But don't you have a public holiday for him (MLK)? How did the government not secure copyright for his most famous speech? That is almost like the national anthem copyrighted by a corp. Does at least the president keep copyright of his speeches?
"This video contains content from Screen Media Ventures, LLC, CD Baby, Diwan Videos and IODA, one or more of whom have blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."
Since some people can't access the videos and many of the links will go dead here's a torrent[1]. I also found the text[2] but that seems to have some of its words changed slightly compared to the video.
I'm really sorry, I didn't know it caused that because it didn't happen in my browser (firefox) but after the complaints I looked at it in chrome and it does indeed break the formatting. I can not edit my previous post anymore, again sorry for the inconvenience.
Can we get a journalist to cover the history of the copyright of this broadcast and the players who continue to profit from the doctor's fine words? I'd really like to know why his family ever felt entitled to keeping such a monumental event repressed.
The number of times I have come across this video in whatever store or whatever other legal form is effectively zero. This is the first time I have the opportunity to see it. So, I expect profits to be extremely small, and thus resulting in good works getting basically nothing and the video being virtually lost to mankind's current culture, save for events like this one.
This is actually an interesting part of the culture around copyright: People seem to think copyright law is actually about plagiarism, so as long as they explicitly say they don't own something they're in the clear. It doesn't work like that, but it's how people seem to want the law to work.
What's more, plagiarism is reliably punished using whatever social means the community has. As we see here, in fact: Mentioning it is pretty much the only recourse left, so that's what we do.
the united states judicial system discriminates against programmers, giving 10x the sentences for equivalent crimes in other older offenses like armed robbery. downloading a file can get you more jail time than waving a gun around in a populated area demanding money.
I demand to be treated equally. that means when a senator gets caught bribing for millions in personal gain, he gets put away for 35 years, as an example.
This is even more apt than you think:
"In the 1987 documentary Eyes on the Prize about the US Civil Rights Movement, there was a birthday party scene in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s discouragement began to lift. After its initial release, the film was unavailable for sale or broadcast for many years because of the cost of clearing many copyrights, of which "Happy Birthday to You" was one. Grants in 2005 for copyright clearances[15] have allowed PBS to rebroadcast the film as recently as February 2008.[16]"
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You