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Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

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Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#71

Post by chimeracoder »

danielweber wrote: post #59
masklinn wrote: post #52

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.

Of course they can. That's not the issue. The issue is that textbook publishers cannot (or will not) include the speech in their books, because then they would have to pay royalties (and indirectly pass along those costs to the schools).

Furthermore, use of the video is much more heavily controlled by the King estate.

Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#73

Post by Zimahl »

e12e wrote: post #57
sliverstorm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can infiltrating the Black Panthers really be considered "anti-freedoms"? What freedoms, exactly? The freedom to be violent?

Perhaps the freedom to self defence? The Black Panther party didn't magically appear out of a vacuum, to boldly proclaim equal rights and freedom from police brutality, where no oppression existed.

MLK decided to use peaceful civil disobedience following the lead of Ghandi. Peaceful protest doesn't lead to a majority backlash, whereas aggressive, militant tactics do. MLK and his movement are remembered for boycotts and protest leading to the Civil Rights Act. The Black Panthers are remembered as being violent and divisive.

For all the good you do can be wiped out in one instant by a single bad.

Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#75

Post by hawkharris »

masklinn wrote: post #52
slg wrote: post #23

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…

> 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…

Even a few paragraphs would likely get them smashed, especially if they're the most interesting of the speech.

I second this point. Under the Fair Use doctrine, courts consider not just the amount of text used, but the so-called substantiality of the excerpt. In other words, even a small portion of the text may not be fair use if it's especially iconic and representative of the whole.

Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#76

Post by wehadfun »

snicklepuff wrote: post #40

I've seen and read the entire speech dozens of times: In school, I distinctly remember being given the entire speech transcription and talking about it as a class on more than one occasion. In elementary school, we would have an actor come on our "morning announcements" and re-enact the speech each year. One teacher showed it to us on YouTube in it's entirety. Is my experience really that unusual?

Yes. This is unusual. I went to 4 elementary schools. My wife is a elementary school teacher and has taught at around 5 of them and none did this.

I am curious how old you are if you saw a Youtube video in your class in elementary school.

Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#77

Post by chimeracoder »

WalterSear wrote: post #14
yread wrote: post #2

You can read it here http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

So, not hidden behind a copyright wall?

The distribution of the printed text is far less controlled than the video, which is much harder to find (legally) than the text.

In the case of the text, it is possible to find copies online (for, via the National Archives), but redistribution in other printed works (namely, textbooks) is problematic.

As for the video, the King estate controls that very, very tightly.

Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#78

Post by chimeracoder »

mintplant wrote: post #70

Actually, I have read "I Have a Dream". In school. In multiple classes, at multiple schools, in different parts of the U.S. We also watched the video of the speech in class. 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.

> Teachers don't actually care about such restrictions.

No, but textbook publishers do. The current state of affairs means that very few textbooks include the speech, because textbooks are sold commercially.

Agreed, teachers are notorious for ignoring copyright (I've seen them photograph entire books for us in teaching), but that's a separate matter. IMHO, the solution to broken uses of copyright isn't to say, "let's just ignore it", even if that does have a desirable effect.

Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#79

Post by hearty777 »

jared314 wrote: post #64
metric10 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> And as for the "MLK-Hitler poster" argument, that would be fair use Selling MLK-Hitler posters would not count as fair use. That was the point I was making.

Are you serious? I'm fairly sure you're protected by the first amendment for selling MLK-Hitler posters. In fact, you can Google for those items now. Here's one:

http://www.redbubble.com/people/artofmewa/works/8484381-the-...

Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#80

Post by chimeracoder »

LukeShu wrote: post #43

> ... the two other people who wrote it (and likely wrote most of it). For what it's worth, when MLK noticed he was failing to engage the audience, he went off-script and improvised a large portion of the speech.

All the more reason for people to watch the video (which is much more heavily controlled by the King estate) than to rely on the printed text!
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