101–110 of 234 posts
And, the U.S. government had to _pay_ the king family $800,000 for the rights to use his copyrighted words on the very statue built to memorialize him. ( http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/08/maya-angelou-u... )
Can someone please explain this? Do his children depend on the royalties for income?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That's assuming you CAN buy the book/speech.
Here is even an illustrated form for children with a CD: http://amzn.com/0375858873
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I think the question should be: Would Dr. King have kept it locked up by copyright? I don't think he would, but I have only my own faith to back that up.
Actually, he did. Before his death, Dr. King actively maintained the copyright on the speech, hoping that any profits from its distribution would be spent to help fund his causes. Perhaps the question should be: Would Dr. King have kept it locked up by copyright for more than 50 years? Actually, my question is this "SHOULD this speech (and other works) be kept locked up by copyright for more than 50 years?"
> Actually, my question is this "SHOULD this speech (and other works) be kept locked up by copyright for more than 50 years?"
Agreed, on both counts.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'd like to get confirmation of this by someone who knows more Indian history than I do but I've been told more than once that the popular narrative than independence was secured almost entirely by Gandhian non-violence is woefully oversold. There are many statues to armed freedom fighters around India and Indian Railways famously have special counters provided as a privilege for "Senior Citizens, Disabled, MLAs and…
India's resistance to British imperialism is similar to the US response to British imperialism. Sometimes armed resistance is necessary but when done within the official context of an army, with rules of engagement and hierarchy, it can be legitimized.
However, when fringe militant resistance that is the definition of terrorism is used, it tends to have the opposite affect.
The Black Panthers weren't doing themselves any favors within the establishment by being so militant. LBJ wouldn't have spent 5 minutes bowing to their demands but had no choice politically to negotiate with a preacher leading a peaceful, rights-driven resistance.
What you have to understand is that politically the Democrats had full control of the southern states up until the Civil Rights Act. After LBJ (a Texas, southern Democrat) got the CRA passed the entirety of the southern Democrats became Republicans - where those same states are to this day. It was done at a huge cost to LBJ and the Democrats, but it was the right choice.
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.
Showing your age? :)
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…
I am one such. In fact, I heard it just the other day. It starts at 46:04 of http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/28/50_years_after_march_o... .
Democracy Now also has lengthy excerpts from MLK's "Beyond Vietnam" speech and his "I Have Been to the Mountain Top" (See http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/16/special_dr_martin_luth... ) and likely more speeches if you search the archives.
(It may be that since a news show isn't a documentary, it is one of the exceptions implied in 'most circumstances.')
I agree with you: the reason why 'ask the people sitting near you' works is likely more because - as you say - most people don't listen to speeches or watch documentaries with speeches in them.
I disagree with your religious imagery observation somewhat, because that speech doesn't include much in the way of religious imagery which needs to be explained. Looking through the copy at http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf , I see:
- references to the Gettysburg Address ("Five score years ago .. this hallowed spot")
- religious references ("captivity" can refer to the Babylonian captivity; "The whirlwinds of revolt" sounds like a reference to a verse from Hosea; "every valley shall be exalted ... all flesh shall see it together" is Isaiah 40:4-5.)
- Shakespeare ("This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent" is a reference to Richard III)
- perhaps Newton? ("meeting physical force with soul force" sound like "equal and opposite force")
- The Declaration of Independence ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal")
- the 1831 song "My Country 'Tis of Thee" (some 17 lines are a reference to the song)
This doesn't sound like any more use of religious imagery than other texts often taught in school. "To Kill a Mockingbird", for example, starts with a Methodist fleeing religious intolerance in England, and has an scene where the white children Scout and Jem go to Calpurnia's black church for a Sunday service.
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…
The speech is readily found by those who know how to Google. Perhaps more Americans would have read the speech if not for the crazy copyright laws, but I think most people haven't read it simply because most people aren't interested in reading historical speeches. It's a little off-topic and a little cynical, but I think the larger issue here is that we've watered our teaching of history (and most things) down to sou…
Exactly, or at least to neat narratives that are very much retrospectively constructed and do not really give a realistic picture of the messiness of how the events felt to those who were living through them. I think reading actual speeches, or documents written at the time gives a very complementary view to the neat narratives and insight into the value systems that people had at the time. Of course this is precisely the reason why reading them demands very much of the reader.
In general, I think, one should read more original works, and less later histories describing said works. It is more demanding, but also more satisfying.