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The article mostly covers the relevant law and how the copyright ownership has evolved. I kept thinking about what we could do now. I doubt the copyright owner

by spodek 15y ago

The article mostly covers the relevant law and how the copyright ownership has evolved. I kept thinking about what we could do now. I doubt the copyright owner thinks about copyright laws like we do -- freedom, culture evolving, etc. Other posts on this thread say "Martin Luther King's descendants ... are disgracing the man's heritage," they probably don't know our perspective. They haven't read The Right to Read -- http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html. They probably intend to keep others from messing it up. Instead of insulting them, we might try to educate them on our perspective and see if they might be persuaded to release it under the GPL or something similar. If Sony has it, they may be unwilling to change, but maybe the family? If an inflexible conglomerate already has it, what can we learn from them about getting the owners of rights to culturally important copyrighted works first? There are more of us. Why did they get there first? How can we do better next time? I want copyright law changed, but in the meantime, this work and many like it could be GPL'ed. Why don't we make that happen?

JS_startup 15y ago
MLK's descendants have turned his speech and legacy into a commodity, sued each other, stolen money from his estate and setup businesses solely for capitalizing on the speech. Something tells me they would not be interested in releasing the speech under the GPL.
- Newgy 15y ago
  Yeah, MLK's family has been unusually greedy. They even used copyright to demand money during the building of the MLK Memorial! http://savannahnow.com/stories/102501/LOCmlkmemory.shtml http://savannahnow.com/stories/102501/LOCmlkmemory.shtml
jonnathanson 15y ago
FWIW, King's speech contains close to 40% repurposed or borrowed material (from the Declaration of Independence, the song "My Country 'Tis of Thee," cribs from previous speeches by Archibald Carey, etc.). I say this not to diminish the accomplishment, triumph, or historical significance of Dr. King's famous speech, but rather, to raise the point that it's a very nuanced copyright matter. Am I allowed to copyright a work derived from a collage of other people's works? If I incorporated one of your posts into a blog post of mine, could I copyright the entirety of the blog post? According to the letter of the law, King's estate should have been entitled only to copyright the portions of the "I Have a Dream" speech that contained 100% original material [1]. Yet these are not the most recognizable or famous portions of the speech, and they're not the portions King's estate has often licensed out to advertisers, etc. Almost all of the words most famously associated with the "I Have a Dream" speech are borrowed from other source material. And, unless I'm missing something -- I'm not a lawyer, so that's possible -- they should not have been granted to King's estate in the first place. Perhaps the current laws on the books took effect after that granting? [1]From 17 U.S.C. SS 103(b): "The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material."
- Symmetry 15y ago
  That's "Does not imply any _exclusive_ right to the preexisting materiel". The entire derived work is still copyrighted to the extent that the author exercised creative judgement while composing or arranging it, whether or not all the components are copyrighted independently[1]. The law you quoted just says that you don't suddenly acquire copyright on the components you used in creating your work. [1] IANAL EDIT: s/That/That's/
  - jonnathanson 15y ago
    Great clarification. Thank you!
- loumf 15y ago
  Two of those citations were in the public domain -- I don't know Carey, but does cribbing means wholesale copying or similar sentiment? If he says the "same thing" as Carey but in his own words, then it's a new work.
- moldbug 15y ago
  Ironically, MLK was not the actual author of the "Dream" speech, which was written by King's regular speechwriters, Stanley Levison and Clarence B. Jones.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream#Speech_title_and_the_writing_process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream#Speech_title_and...). It's an interesting comment on our society that it prefers to attribute this type of artistic work to the performer, rather than the actual writer. Perhaps future generations will see MLK simply as the man who read Stanley Levison's great speeches, or Obama as the actor who brought Jon Favreau alive. We give props to Yo-Yo Ma for a great performance of Bach, too, but we don't talk about "Ma's fugue." And there's a very well-developed system for distinguishing between composition and performance copyrights...
  - bsk26 15y ago
    from your link, "The speech was drafted with the assistance of Stanley Levison and Clarence Benjamin Jones[12] in Riverdale, New York City." "written" and "drafted with assistance" arn't quite the same thing. Though imo it's a silly point regardless.
gwern 15y ago
> Instead of insulting them, we might try to educate them on our perspective and see if they might be persuaded to release it under the GPL or something similar. If Sony has it, they may be unwilling to change, but maybe the family? Ahahaha. No, you would have better luck persuading Sony than the family. The family is very clear: MLK is a goldmine they will exploit as much as possible. This is the same family that has so far made somewhere around a million dollars in licensing and consulting fees from the DC memorial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Memorial#Fees_to_King_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Memori...). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Memorial#Fees_to_King_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Memori...

by spodek 15y ago

JS_startup 15y ago

MLK's descendants have turned his speech and legacy into a commodity, sued each other, stolen money from his estate and setup businesses solely for capitalizing on the speech. Something tells me they would not be interested in releasing the speech under the GPL.

Newgy 15y ago
Yeah, MLK's family has been unusually greedy. They even used copyright to demand money during the building of the MLK Memorial! http://savannahnow.com/stories/102501/LOCmlkmemory.shtml http://savannahnow.com/stories/102501/LOCmlkmemory.shtml

jonnathanson 15y ago

FWIW, King's speech contains close to 40% repurposed or borrowed material (from the Declaration of Independence, the song "My Country 'Tis of Thee," cribs from previous speeches by Archibald Carey, etc.). I say this not to diminish the accomplishment, triumph, or historical significance of Dr. King's famous speech, but rather, to raise the point that it's a very nuanced copyright matter. Am I allowed to copyright a work derived from a collage of other people's works? If I incorporated one of your posts into a blog post of mine, could I copyright the entirety of the blog post? According to the letter of the law, King's estate should have been entitled only to copyright the portions of the "I Have a Dream" speech that contained 100% original material [1]. Yet these are not the most recognizable or famous portions of the speech, and they're not the portions King's estate has often licensed out to advertisers, etc. Almost all of the words most famously associated with the "I Have a Dream" speech are borrowed from other source material. And, unless I'm missing something -- I'm not a lawyer, so that's possible -- they should not have been granted to King's estate in the first place. Perhaps the current laws on the books took effect after that granting? [1]From 17 U.S.C. SS 103(b): "The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material."

Symmetry 15y ago
That's "Does not imply any _exclusive_ right to the preexisting materiel". The entire derived work is still copyrighted to the extent that the author exercised creative judgement while composing or arranging it, whether or not all the components are copyrighted independently[1]. The law you quoted just says that you don't suddenly acquire copyright on the components you used in creating your work. [1] IANAL EDIT: s/That/That's/
- jonnathanson 15y ago
  Great clarification. Thank you!
loumf 15y ago
Two of those citations were in the public domain -- I don't know Carey, but does cribbing means wholesale copying or similar sentiment? If he says the "same thing" as Carey but in his own words, then it's a new work.
moldbug 15y ago
Ironically, MLK was not the actual author of the "Dream" speech, which was written by King's regular speechwriters, Stanley Levison and Clarence B. Jones.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream#Speech_title_and_the_writing_process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream#Speech_title_and...). It's an interesting comment on our society that it prefers to attribute this type of artistic work to the performer, rather than the actual writer. Perhaps future generations will see MLK simply as the man who read Stanley Levison's great speeches, or Obama as the actor who brought Jon Favreau alive. We give props to Yo-Yo Ma for a great performance of Bach, too, but we don't talk about "Ma's fugue." And there's a very well-developed system for distinguishing between composition and performance copyrights...
- bsk26 15y ago
  from your link, "The speech was drafted with the assistance of Stanley Levison and Clarence Benjamin Jones[12] in Riverdale, New York City." "written" and "drafted with assistance" arn't quite the same thing. Though imo it's a silly point regardless.

gwern 15y ago

> Instead of insulting them, we might try to educate them on our perspective and see if they might be persuaded to release it under the GPL or something similar. If Sony has it, they may be unwilling to change, but maybe the family? Ahahaha. No, you would have better luck persuading Sony than the family. The family is very clear: MLK is a goldmine they will exploit as much as possible. This is the same family that has so far made somewhere around a million dollars in licensing and consulting fees from the DC memorial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Memorial#Fees_to_King_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Memori...). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Memorial#Fees_to_King_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Memori...