Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream” • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by mullingitover » Thu, Aug 29, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

bpatrianakos wrote: post #58

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…

> But for every case like the King speech there are plenty more that are examples of its benefit.

Nope [1].

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/07/31...

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

#122

Post by devx » Thu, Aug 29, 2013, 6:44 PM UTC

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…

At the very least it "chilled" the usage of that speech, because it's not very clear whether they will be targeted by the owners or not (they probably would be, which is reason enough not to use it, even if they are in the "right" to use it).

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

#123

Post by e12e » Thu, Aug 29, 2013, 6:44 PM UTC

Zimahl wrote: post #73

e12e wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Dr. King’s policy was that nonviolence would achieve the gains for black people in the United States. His major assumption was that if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That’s very good. He only made one fallacious assumption: In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none."

-- Stokely Carmichael

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

#124

Post by pca » Thu, Aug 29, 2013, 6:45 PM UTC

We've read the speech in school in Germany. Not from a textbook, but simply a copied text, from the internet I presume. Was that illegal? I think every class did. A relative who was a few years behind me also read it, with a different teacher.

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

#125

Post by acjohnson55 » Thu, Aug 29, 2013, 6:46 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #44

the part that disgusts me is that the estate was paid seven hundred thousand dollars to use the words on the monument erected in his honor. I posted this the other day from an article in the Washington Times, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6290716 which leads to http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-you-wont-see-or-h... I know copyright and such laws have their place, but when it comes down to it, this est…

Not to excuse that, but if you give the average person a lever they can pull to cause $700k to get airdropped into their hands, I think the vast majority would. From a policy perspective, maybe we should rethink that lever.

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

#126

Post by mistercow » Thu, Aug 29, 2013, 6:48 PM UTC

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…

>Secondly, there is a lot of religious imagery in the speech. I could certainly imagine people objecting to having the speech presented in a secular school.

At my (public) high school (10ish years ago), we had "character education", and one of the "character words" we had (there was a new one each month) was "respect for the Creator", which is:

A) Actually four words.

B) Insanely, crazy religious.

I assure you that the religious angle is not why this is not presented in full in schools.

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

#127

Post by zaphar » Thu, Aug 29, 2013, 6:48 PM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #86

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…

I really don't think references to religion are a problem. My AP English class read parts of the Bible itself - because it has significant literary and historic importance even if you don't view it as a religious text. This is in a secular public school in a very liberal state only recently. Nobody objected, because if you start going down that road, you will have to throw out pretty much everything written before 18…

Many schools do start down that road. Having the Bible in your classroom even for purely non religious reasons has gotten people in trouble before and many schools just don't want the hassle so they outright ban it.

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

#128

Post by chimeracoder » Thu, Aug 29, 2013, 6:49 PM UTC

pca wrote: post #124

We've read the speech in school in Germany. Not from a textbook, but simply a copied text, from the internet I presume. Was that illegal? I think every class did. A relative who was a few years behind me also read it, with a different teacher.

Not sure of international copyright status, but probably it was legal.

The main casualty of the copyright status is that textbooks cannot reproduce it freely.

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

#129

Post by fancyketchup » Thu, Aug 29, 2013, 6:52 PM UTC

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.

IANAL, but as appalling as I think they would be, MLK-Hitler posters are practically the textbook case of fair use:

1) Transformative factor: To say that an MLK-Hitler poster "adds new expression or meaning" to the original is to make the understatement of the year. I may not like the new aesthetics, but they are certainly there. Furthermore, the posters are powerful imagery (value is added) to those who hate MLK.

2) Amount: The posters only excerpt a single frame of a much longer video.

3) Nature of original: The video is not abstract art... it documents a historically- and culturally-significant event. This gives poster-makers broad latitude to do as they please.

4) Effect on market for original: Any argument that an MLK-Hitler poster is a substitute for video of the original speech is a non-starter and doesn't pass the giggle test. You would have to argue second-order effects, (that the posters ruin MLK's image, and therefore reduce demand for all things MLK) and courts haven't really gone for that (if they did, you couldn't publish an unfavorable movie review that showed a still from the movie). If anything, it probably inspires people to try to find the original and pay the (outrageous) licensing fees.

So an MLK-Hitler poster passes the fair-use test on every single count.

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

#130

Post by mistercow » Thu, Aug 29, 2013, 6:52 PM UTC

bpatrianakos wrote: post #58

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…

Surely the author doesn't intend this as an argument for the abolition of all copyright. It's clearly an argument that copyright terms should be something less than one hundred and twenty years.