61–70 of 234 posts
The counter argument, though, is "How many people have read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address"? Many know "Four score and seven years ago", but how many know "we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground"? I think this says more about our "sound-bite" culture than how protective the family is of the audio.
Is the author (and submitter, who's the same person) working off a false premise?
I have to disagree with part of the premise. While the speech is copyrighted, that might not be the reason most people haven't read or seen the entirety of the speech. If schools really wanted to teach it, it would be well within fair use laws for them to show the whole thing. There are probably a variety of other reasons why you don't see this speech taught in schools. First one that comes to mind is its length. Unl…
See: http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/19989079.MAN.pdf
This completely ignores that companies will sell, and edit, popular public domain works for a profit, if they can. It was initially a defensive copyright by the King, Jr. estate. Fox Records started selling records of the speech in 1968 [1]. And, CBS was rebroadcasting the speech for commercial purposes [2]. Only later did his family more strictly control the work and likeness of King, Jr. Otherwise, we might have se…
Given the technology of the era, how else where people supposed to gain access to it? And so what if they made a profit doing it, so long as other companies or individuals had the right to distribute it also. In the end more copies would have been distributed and listened to. And as for the "MLK-Hitler poster" argument, that would be fair use and wouldn't be stopped by copyright.
Selling MLK-Hitler posters would not count as fair use. That was the point I was making.
The author here makes a good point until he asks his final question. In the case of Dr. Martin Luther King I don't believe copyright would have had any influence on the likelihood of delivering it. The purpose of the speech was selfless and so despite the copyright issue being disappointing it doesn't seem like he would have said "well, since future students won't be able to read the full text of my speech why delive…
King enforced the copyright and sold records of his speeches. He knew exactly what he was doing.
I don't know where the writer on the article got the idea that MLK would have agreed with the writer's current legal opinions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If schools really wanted to teach it, it would be well within fair use laws for them to show the whole thing. No, not a chance. Even a few paragraphs would likely get them smashed, especially if they're the most interesting of the speech. > First one that comes to mind is its length. Have people stopped studying books or something? > Secondly, there is a lot of religious imagery in the speech. I could certainly ima…
Schools have successfully used copyrighted books all the time in literature classes without problems. You can't run it off yourself on the mimeograph machine but just go buy 30 copies and leave them in the classroom.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If schools really wanted to teach it, it would be well within fair use laws for them to show the whole thing. No, not a chance. Even a few paragraphs would likely get them smashed, especially if they're the most interesting of the speech. > First one that comes to mind is its length. Have people stopped studying books or something? > Secondly, there is a lot of religious imagery in the speech. I could certainly ima…
Schools have successfully used copyrighted books all the time in literature classes without problems. You can't run it off yourself on the mimeograph machine but just go buy 30 copies and leave them in the classroom.
The author here makes a good point until he asks his final question. In the case of Dr. Martin Luther King I don't believe copyright would have had any influence on the likelihood of delivering it. The purpose of the speech was selfless and so despite the copyright issue being disappointing it doesn't seem like he would have said "well, since future students won't be able to read the full text of my speech why delive…
Copyright law isn't preventing the material from being taught. Teachers don't actually care about such restrictions. They ignore them and teach it anyway.