27 ms·

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

505 points by chimeracoder 13y ago

flatline 13y ago
I don't know about you all, but public school did an abysmal job of teaching me any US history post-WWII. It's like nothing has happened in this country since the women's suffrage movement, with WWII a hasty footnote. Honestly, I think the politics were too hot to handle through the 1980s, when cultural divides arout Vietnam were very fresh, and those from King's time still not too distant. What is being taught in high school nowadays?
- bzbarsky 13y ago
  I actually think this has more to do with the textbook authors not thinking of those time periods as "history" but as "current events" somehow and hence not feeling like a "history" book needs to include them. If you were in school about 15-20 years ago, and the textbooks were about 15 years old (pretty common), and the authors were in their 40s or 50s when writing them, then events of 60-65 years ago, so the late 40s and early 50s, would have corresponded to their teenage years... Once you get into the 70s or 80s, it's not just the textbook authors who think that way but also most of the teachers.
yread 13y ago
You can read it here http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf
- clicks 13y ago
  And watch it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs Incidentally, please do take the 17 minutes to watch this speech (and perhaps follow along with yread's transcript link). It really is one of the greatest speeches ever given.
  - hudibras 13y ago
    And keep in mind that MLK was 34 years old when he gave that speech. I'm trying hard not to think about what I was doing at that age...
    - speedyrev 13y ago
      Also keep in mind that the last portion starting with "I have a dream..." and following was all improvised. The original draft didn't include those words.
- rthomas6 13y ago
  Thank you for this. I had forgotten how powerful this speech is.
- WalterSear 13y ago
  So, not hidden behind a copyright wall?
  - chimeracoder 13y ago
    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.
- ebspelman 13y ago
  And listen to it (while reading the transcript) here http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122701268 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1227012...
alexjeffrey 13y ago
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=i+have+a+dream&page=&utm_source=opensearch http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=i+have+a+dream&p... thank god for those who don't respect overzealous copyright holders.
- rdl 13y ago
  Indeed, YouTube was my first answer to this. We need more Huey P. Newton and Malcolm X for the issues of today (regulatory capture and the shredded constitution, political campaign finance, income/opportunity inequality being the main meta-issues), I think, rather than more MLK.
  - andrewljohnson 13y ago
    MLK is just as useful for today's issues. This seems the same to me: Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksile...
  - iends 13y ago
    You're saying we need more people who physically harm others?
    - rdl 13y ago
      Without the threat of someone more extreme, I don't believe someone like MLK can be terribly effective. I also don't think someone like MLK can work in a repressive regime which isn't generally subject to public will, or when trying to enforce human rights which are constitutionally protected, strongly wanted by a small affected population, but meaningless to the greater population. I can't see 50-80 year old non-technical voters caring about key escrow or mandatory data retention, even though it's an infringement of 1A/2A/4A/5A/6A/14A/+. (It's not violence per se, it's extremism. RMS is a copyright extremist, and that makes things easier for people like Lessig I think. Gilmore is a fly-without-papers extremist, etc.)
danso 13y ago
"I Have A Dream" shows the heights of humanity, and its copyright status shows the pettiness of humanity.
sczkid 13y ago
Here's a good summary of the copyright issue: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/08/27/i-have-a-dream-speech-still-private-property/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/08/...
- Pxtl 13y ago
  Interestingly it mentions that King himself was involved in suing people for selling videos of his speech, showing that the final lines of the blog article are wrong - he actually did enjoy the protections that copyright law offered him.
  - scrabble 13y ago
    Did he also sue people who weren't profiting from his speech? I think those are very different things.
andrewljohnson 13y ago
Heard it during MLK Day on NPR, was absolutely floored. Also, MLK's comments on the Vietnam War were remarkably prescient, and apply just fine to our terrible wars today. If you still believe that the USG is not, in places and at times, terribly evil and corrupt, you probably don't know about the USG's efforts to kill MLK: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/31/mlk.fbi.conspiracy/ http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/31/mlk.fbi.conspiracy/
- scassidy 13y ago
  It doesn't sound like they tried to kill him. They tried to prove an alignment with the communist party (and failed miserably). I can't believe the FBI honestly thought a note would drive him to suicide.
  - VonGuard 13y ago
    The FBI was doing a whole lot more than trying to link him to the communists. It was standard operation to infiltrate all civil rights groups. I don;t know specifically what they did to King's org, but the Black Panthers were fucked by the FBI. Malcom X's body guard, for example, was an undercover FBI agent. Most of the civil rights groups had undercover FBI inside them, and in high ranking positions. Yet another example of our government hating our freedoms.... Oh wait, I thought those were the terrorists....
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Can infiltrating the Black Panthers really be considered "anti-freedoms"? What freedoms, exactly? The freedom to be violent?
      - VonGuard 13y ago
        The Panthers did a LOT more than be violent. They opened soup kitchens, and housed the homeless. They were a terrific organization for helping people int heir communities. The violence and such was, actually, a product of the FBI. Just as they do today, the FBI embedded rabbel rousers in Panther events, and used them to touch off violence and whip up the crowd. The FBI actually encouraged the behavior they were there to prevent. They do the EXACT same thing in Occupy protests, today. The fact that you believe the Panthers were nothing more than a violent group shows that the FBI won this battle. Here, read up on the Panthers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party From the Wikipedia: Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover called the party "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country,"[13] and he supervised an extensive program (COINTELPRO) of surveillance, infiltration, perjury, police harassment and many other tactics designed to undermine Panther leadership, incriminate party members and drain the organization of resources and manpower. Through these tactics, Hoover hoped to diminish the Party's threat to the general power structure of the U.S., or even maintain its influence as a strong undercurrent.[14] Angela Davis, Ward Churchill, and others have alleged that federal, state and local law enforcement officials went to great lengths to discredit and destroy the organization, including assassination.[15][16][17] Black Panther Party membership reached a peak of 10,000 by early 1969, then suffered a series of contractions due to legal troubles, incarcerations, internal splits, expulsions and defections. Popular support for the Party declined further after reports appeared detailing the group's involvement in illegal activities such as drug dealing and extortion schemes directed against Oakland merchants.[18] By 1972 most Panther activity centered on the national headquarters and a school in Oakland, where the party continued to influence local politics. Party contractions continued throughout the 1970s; by 1980 the Black Panther Party comprised just 27 members.[19]
fnbaptiste 13y ago
I read the entirety in college. It was in a textbook I used to own. That in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which is also very much worth reading (found here: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h... )
- gknoy 13y ago
  I remember reading that about a year ago though Letters of Note (which is often excellent), and being absolutely blown away by how eloquent King was. It was an amazing letter.
unreal37 13y ago
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.
- CoffeeDregs 13y ago
  >The counter argument, though, is "How many >people have read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address"? Your counter-argument was about as valid as saying "How many people have needed freedom?" In any case, your counter-argument seems unrelated to the OP's post... Whether or not people would read or listen to the entire speech, the OP was arguing that copyright laws are impeding the creation of new content, the consumption of existing, important content and society's understanding of itself. >I think this says more about our "sound-bite" culture than >how protective the family is of the audio. Ironically, your comment represents the 'sound-bite' culture quite effectively.
  - unreal37 13y ago
    Why are you making this about me?
- jerf 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure we read the whole thing in school. It was not long. Of course, probably only about 10% of us really understood what he meant by that phrase you quoted, but hey, at least the school system tried.
- dalke 13y ago
  My 9th grade English class had to memorize it.
rbellio 13y ago
I remember watching it on some encyclopedia product that came loaded on my HP back sometime around '95. They also had presidential speeches and the Hindenburg crash among other events. I thought I was the coolest kid ever to have access to such historical information at my home; that so much data could be stored on a simple CD.
jaynos 13y ago
On the Media did a great story on this [1]. If you've got 13 minutes to spare, they discuss the copyright issue and the actual construction and delivery of the speech itself. [1] http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/jan/13/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-and-public-imagination/ http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/jan/13/dr-martin-luther-king-...
Macsenour 13y ago
I remember hearing the story of how the text was written and at the last minute, as copies were being made, the lawyer for King added the Circle C and copyright info. Apparently the King family has benefitted financially by that last minute addition. Frankly, I can't imagine a better way to reward Dr. King, and his family, for such an amazing event and turning point in our history. It's not like the money is going to AT&T or Microsoft.
- nanidin 13y ago
  Unless copyright law has changed since then, the circle c doesn't matter. The way copyright works in the US, the rights to any creative work are automatically reserved for the author.
  - Macsenour 13y ago
    I'm not an expert in copyright law by any means. I only recall the story I heard when the man who put the copyright information on the paper released a book a couple of years ago. I'm forgetting his name at the moment.
  - mturmon 13y ago
    Yes, this aspect of copyright law has changed since the Sixties. The circled-C symbol (or the equivalent words) were required before 1989: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_copyright_law#Copyright_notices http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_copyright_law#Cop...
  - daeken 13y ago
    This did in fact change since King's time. IIRC, what you say is true only after the adoption of the Berne convention in 1988.
  - danielweber 13y ago
    That changed around 1989 with the Berne convention to be the way you describe.
mehulkar 13y ago
In 9th grade I memorized and delivered the I Have a Dream speech for my English Honors program. I memorized it by reading it over and over again and I also found an audio recording that I burned onto a CD and listened to 10 times every night. It took me 16 minutes to deliver the whole speech (in costume). I have no idea where I found the audio recording now, although NPR sounds right.
- bennesvig 13y ago
  I did the exact same thing. The teacher offered it as a way to move up a whole letter grade. Our textbook had the whole thing printed, but I also found it online at the time. Also downloaded the audio, though I'm not sure where from, since YouTube wasn't around then.
alayne 13y ago
King himself sued people over the copyright. We need to be careful not to revise history and turn people who did great things into saints.
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  > We need to be careful not to revise history and turn people who did great things into saints. That's true. I should have cut the last paragraph before posting, but now that it's out there and people have read it, I think it's best to let it stand.
slg 13y ago
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. Unlike the Gettysburg Address, this isn't some short speech that could be easily recited from memory. 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. Finally and probably most importantly, what do speeches really teach us? They aren't particularly valuable outside of context. How many of the speeches listed here (http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html) are really taught in school?
- adcoelho 13y ago
  I read the speech in English class when studying different types of writing assignments. We examined it for its structure rather than its content. Studying speeches may prove valuable when preparing oral presentations for instance.
  - 3minus1 13y ago
    I also read it, in 10th grade English. I think we analyzed it's rhetorical effectiveness.
- lowmagnet 13y ago
  I disagreed with its title, because I have read it.
- masklinn 13y ago
  > 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 imagine people objecting to having the speech presented in a secular school. I wouldn't. > Finally and probably most importantly, what do speeches really teach us? They aren't particularly valuable outside of context. It's quite obvious that the speech would be put in context by and used within civil rights study.
ignostic 13y ago
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 soundbites and simple explanations. What we learned about Columbus, MLK, and all the founding fathers were stripped of everything controversial to create flawless heroes with views no PTA member would find offensive. How many of the influential speeches in history have you read? I think Time's list is a good starting place. These were all inspiring, influential, and are all readily available for free: http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1841228,00.html http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/... If you have read even half of these, maybe then I'll buy the copyright argument.
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  > The speech is readily found by those who know how to Google. Unfortunately, textbook are still a/the standard source of information in most public schools. Yes, this raises separate questions about the way that we structure our education system, but that's not the issue at hand. The speech is readily found by those willing to go out of their way to look for it, but it is not included in most textbooks, because those publishers would then have to pay royalties to the King estate (and indirectly pass those costs along to the schools). The video is much harder to find (legally, not illegally!), because the King estate controls it much more tightly.
  - kamjam 13y ago
    Also, 15 years ago, most people had no idea who Google were, internet adoption was much lower, there was a vast majority of people who didn't even own a computer. Your points are still very valid, but something as significant as this should never have been copyright-able from day one. Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet. ~ Mark Twain
  - wmeredith 13y ago
eplanit 13y ago
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-upset-over-mlk-memorial-inscription/ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/08/maya-angelou-u...)
- JPKab 13y ago
  Can someone please explain this? Do his children depend on the royalties for income?
  - antc 13y ago
    No. Profits made from royalties go primarily into funding The King Center. http://www.thekingcenter.org/ http://www.thekingcenter.org/
    - nostromo 13y ago
      And who works for the King Center? MLK's kids. So yes, royalties go to the King Center, which at least in part, go to his children, including MLK III. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_III
      - res0nat0r 13y ago
        And this is bad...how? They are working to further MLK's goals.
        angersock 13y ago
        I haven't seen anything that they've done of recent merit in the news lately.
michielvoo 13y ago
Actually, it was printed in full yesterday in the Dutch newspaper NRC Next.
ArtDev 13y ago
Copyrighted by EMI/Sony: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/copyright-king-why-the-i-have-a-dream-speech-still-isn-t-free http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/copyright-king-why-the-i-ha... There is some effort to make it public (as it should be): http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/internet-activists-are-waging-a-guerrilla-war-to-free-martin-luther-king-from-copyright http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/internet-activists-are-wagi...
jared314 13y ago
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 seen the Dr. King, Jr. version of the Obama-hitler posters of 2008, or his face on a box of children's cereal. [1] http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/mlk_speech/ http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/mlk_spee... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_of_Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.,_Inc._v._CBS,_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_of_Martin_Luther_King,_J....
- metric10 13y ago
  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.
  - jared314 13y ago
    > 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.
    - hearty777 13y ago
      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-thin-line-of-choices-martin-luther-king-and-hitler?p=t-shirt http://www.redbubble.com/people/artofmewa/works/8484381-the-...
      - jared314 13y ago
azernik 13y ago
From someone (not me) who's dealt with publishing excerpts in a book, at least one major publisher's lawyers have decided that the text of the speech was indeed a "public performance" - given in a public place, and broadcast on public radio - and therefore not under copyright. The King family are apparently notoriously insistent on high royalties for any use of the estate's copyrighted works, but they seem to only have a firm lock on the video recordings. (Of course, this may be something that has yet to be tested in court, so Don't Try This At Home unless you have the money for a large lawsuit.)
joshvm 13y ago
Yet Fox News published it not two days ago: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/27/transcript-martin-luther-king-jr-have-dream-speech/ http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/27/transcript-martin-luthe...
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  Chances are they had to pay for it, since that probably did not fall under "fair use" (they are a commercial entity, using the speech as part of their commercial purposes). Unfortunately, the same can be said about textbook publishers, and most of them don't pay for it. Worse, the video is much more heavily controlled by the King estate than the printed text.
mrt0mat0 13y ago
National Archives... Seemed pretty freely available to me http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf
s32dA 13y ago
This is one of the most widely circulated speeches on the internet. If you Google "I Have A Dream Speech", you'll get the pdf, origial text and full video. What a stupid post.
- slacka 13y ago
  I can also Google "Man of Steel (2013) torrent" and download a copy in minutes. That doesn't make it legal. Likewise, you can't stream or show "I Have A Dream Speech" or "Man of Steel" to an audience without violating copyright laws. The real stupidity are our laws extending copyright to 70 years after death, so backwards that many people just chose to ignore them.
snicklepuff 13y ago
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?
- wehadfun 13y ago
  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.
  - snicklepuff 13y ago
    I was jumping around chronologically, the video was shown by a teacher I had in high school. That wasn't clear, sorry.
- freditup 13y ago
  I don't think so. I distinctly remember discussing it multiple times throughout grade school and watching it at least once.
steevejubs 13y ago
سمَـَّوُوُحخ ̷̴̐خ ̷̴̐خ ̷̴̐خ امارتيخ ̷̴̐خ
LukeShu 13y ago
> ... 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.
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  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!
  - LukeShu 13y ago
    Most text copies you find are transcripts of what he actually said, not the script he was reading. It's easy to tell the difference, because the phrase "I have a dream" isn't in the script he was reading!
Shivetya 13y ago
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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6290716 which leads to http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-you-wont-see-or-hear-the-i-have-a-dream-speech/2013/08/27/09d2a07a-0e66-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html 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 estate is just greedy above all else.
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  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.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
bpatrianakos 13y ago
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 deliver it?" Though he understood the significance of the march and probably knew his speech was important is there any evidence to suggest he knew how iconic it would become? And even if he did, was he going to forego addressing his audience, the people assembled at the Lincoln Memorial, to make a statement on copyright? It's doubtful. His speech was for the audience there. The fact that it could be reprinted and studied by future generations is just a bonus. The idea that King would be less likely to deliver his speech because of copyright is not realistic. That said, this also isn't a convincing argument for the abolition of copyright either. I don't know if that was the point though. What this does show is how a copyright can serve the opposite of its intended purpose and hurt society. But for every case like the King speech there are plenty more that are examples of its benefit. It's disappointing that we do not have free and open access to the I Have a Dream speech but its not a good argument against copyright. Copyright is still an issue that boils down to its use and has to be considered on a case by case basis. I don't think it ever has been all good or all bad and overlooking the vast sea of nuance there doesn't help proponents or opponents of it.
- danielweber 13y ago
  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. 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.
- drivingmenuts 13y ago
  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.
runjake 13y ago
I both read and heard the speech entirely in high school back in the 80s. We spent something like 2-3 days on it and MLK's life during that period. Is the author (and submitter, who's the same person) working off a false premise?
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  > Is the author (and submitter, who's the same person) working off a false premise? A large portion of this was affected by a lawsuit from 1999, so keep that in mind[0][1] Also, students today are not prevented from reading the speech; however, the teacher must find a copy online and print it out and distribute it to the students - the point is that most textbooks will not be able to publish/include it. As for the video recording, yes that's been much more heavily restricted. [0]http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/194_F3d_1211.htm http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/194_F3d_1211.htm [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_of_Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.,_Inc._v._CBS,_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_of_Martin_Luther_King,_J....
ghaff 13y ago
Apparently the Churchill estate is also very aggressive about royalties for speeches and written works by Winston Churchill: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130118/16193821734/churchills-heirs-seek-to-lose-future-charging-biographer-to-quote-his-words.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130118/16193821734/church...
mintplant 13y ago
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.
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  > 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.
  - publicfig 13y ago
    I know that McDougal includes it in their teachings. Here's the lesson plan that I learned off of and that is still taught now: http://www.classzone.com/books/language_of_lit_gr07/page_build.cfm?content=sl_dream_u2&u=2 http://www.classzone.com/books/language_of_lit_gr07/page_bui...
- ghx 13y ago
  Same here. I read it in school during Black History Month just about every year as a kid. I don't think teachers worry about getting sued by the King estate for photocopying the speech, any more than they worry about kids singing Happy Birthday in class.
jsta 13y ago
My retort: http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/national/i-have-a-dream-speech-full-text-martin-luther-king-jrs-words-on-aug-28-1963 http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/national/i-have-a-dream-speech...
wehadfun 13y ago
>ask the people sitting near you if they’ve ever heard the >opening lines: >"I am happy to join with you today..." If you are a Michael Jackson fan this was included on the song History.
philliescurt 13y ago
Second result on google: http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf
Medea 13y ago
We actually read the full speech in school and watched the youtube video. We got it as a copy from a textbook called "Speeches that changed the world" by Simon Sebag Montefiore. You can get the ebook from the google play store. From the free sample it seems like they got permission to reproduce copyrigth material from The Estate of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=jPArcMn728kC https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=jPArcMn728kC
lnanek2 13y ago
This was done intentionally by MLK with the proceeds used for good works last time I looked into it. So, amusingly, articles like this are kind of written out of ignorance as to the speech itself.
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  > This was done intentionally by MLK with the proceeds used for good works last time I looked into it. Irrespective of this, it reduces the number of textbooks that can publish the text of the speech to (almost) zero, since most publishers can't afford it. This is a value judgement and therefore subjective, but I don't believe it's worth it.
russellsprouts 13y ago
My English textbook in high school had the text of the speech, and on MLK day we watched a portion of the video.
Theory5 13y ago
Throughout my college years, I had a poster with his entire speech on one of my walls. Unfortunately, tape is not good to posters so I don't have it anymore. I also had John Lennon's Imagine as poster.
pca 13y ago
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.
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  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.
mistercow 13y ago
Prediction: major copyright holder will buy the rights and then license them liberally to get rid of this embarrassing poster child for copyright reform. Actually scratch that, it's not a prediction. It would be smart, but it probably won't happen.
ISL 13y ago
His speech is featured at least once a year (and it was on a few nights ago) on NPR on KUOW. His Massey Lectures are also publicly available: http://www.prx.org/series/31037 http://www.prx.org/series/31037
tehabe 13y ago
I own a German biography of Martin Luther King by Frederik Hetmann (1979), which includes a German translation of the speech. I'm sure the translation is copyrighted under German law.
bennesvig 13y ago
In high school I memorized the entire speech word for word to move my grade from a B to an A. I've read it many, many, many times.
_mulder_ 13y ago
Those in the UK can listen to the speech, in full, for free on iPlayer. It's not Kings original recording but it's respoken by notable civil rights personalities. Just look for I Have A Dream on iPlayer, BBC Radio 4
EGreg 13y ago
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs Text: http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf WUT!
aroman 13y ago
Maybe I'm the exception, but I never experienced anything but easy access to the speech. A few months ago I googled it and got the full text and great YouTube video taping of it. No issues.
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
It's interesting the version from the US National Archives (http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf) has (top of page 5) different wording to the speech (IIRC) My own little children ... shall be judged not by the color of their skin Vs My four small children ... shall not be judged by ... "Shall be judged not" is the speech and just the memory with its crackling soundtrack gets me. It's odd how even with a prepared speech he still belted out a better version on the day. Edit: oh yes - anyone wanting to improve their accent before the next YC interviews could do a lot lot worse than have MLK playing through their headphones each day. Learn from the very best.
MarcScott 13y ago
There was a move earlier in the year on "Internet Freedom Day' for everyone to share the video of the speech, anywhere they could, in defiance of the copyright. Not sure what traction there was. http://boingboing.net/2013/01/18/its-internet-freedom-day-ti.html http://boingboing.net/2013/01/18/its-internet-freedom-day-ti...
anigbrowl 13y ago
This is a much, much better article on the same subject: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-you-wont-see-or-hear-the-i-have-a-dream-speech/2013/08/27/09d2a07a-0e66-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-you-wont-see-or-h...
hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
It's on YouTube, although I don't know if it's complete: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs
sarreph 13y ago
But... It's here? http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf
andrelaszlo 13y ago
http://www.ibtimes.com/i-have-dream-speech-full-transcript-video-read-dr-martin-luther-king-jrs-1963-speech-its-50th http://www.ibtimes.com/i-have-dream-speech-full-transcript-v...
tomphoolery 13y ago
I love how you equate "access" with "reading". Especially given the highly rhetoric tone of the speech, reading it to me would just be doing the whole thing a disservice. A good chunk of what makes that speech successful is his awesome use of rhetoric and repitition to get his point across. It's a really dumbass comparison but IMO Chris Rock does the same thing, he'll repeat a concept over and over to the audience in between doing jokes about the concept. I think these are two sides to the same coin, rhetoric goes a LONG way when convincing others that your words are truth in public. We studied this speech in my high school, as well as speeches by FDR and John F. Kennedy (sidenote: why are all great public speakers referred to by the initials that make up their name? MLK, FDR, JFK, etc.). We studied the speech to learn more about rhetoric and how an orator can twist common words into powerful devices for convincing you to believe in their ideas. Oh and by the way? we read it too. This was to emphasize how much more powerful the speech is when SPOKEN rather than read. It's really not that fun to read, the sentences are so repetitive, short and simple that it's hard to believe an educated man wrote them, but that is of course the purpose of such speeches...you speak them in such a way that the simple becomes complex and weak words become powerful.
romilgarg4 13y ago
Totally agree.
romilgarg4 13y ago
Totally agree.
diminoten 13y ago
Ah yes, I love it when "Hacker News readers" becomes a thing. Just like, "Redditors have pointed out via YouTube comments..."
jhuckestein 13y ago
FWIW everyone in my school in Germany read the entire speech in English class.
dmead 13y ago
false. did a paper on it in college.
ghshephard 13y ago
150 used, starting at $0.65 - I don't really think this material is that difficult to acquire. http://www.amazon.com/Have-Dream-Writings-Speeches-Anniversary/dp/0062505521 http://www.amazon.com/Have-Dream-Writings-Speeches-Anniversa... ""I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World," by Martin Luther King, Jr., is a fine collection of texts by this important figure. The book has been edited by James M. Washington. Coming in at less than 300 pages, this is a concise but meaty book. Washington includes King's most important texts: the "Letter from Birmingham Jail"; the "I Have a Dream" speech; his Nobel Prize acceptance speech; "My Trip to the Land of Gandhi"; "A Time to Break Silence," his 1967 speech criticizing the United States war in Vietnam, and more. These writings and speeches cover King's great themes: nonviolent resistance, the African-American civil rights movement, etc."
Raphael 13y ago
Image not available pending copyright permission http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/mcc:@field(DOCID+@lit(mcc/029) http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/mcc:@field(DOCID...)
ww3 13y ago
http://archive.org/details/MLKDream http://archive.org/details/MLKDream http://www.ushistory.org/documents/i-have-a-dream.htm http://www.ushistory.org/documents/i-have-a-dream.htm Someone who claimed that was inaccessible makes it to the front page? We need moderators.
raymondh 13y ago
The full text of the speech is in the National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf
Bulkington 13y ago
Can we officially retire this discussion, apres anniversary? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3474526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3474526
robmiller 13y ago
It was in my 8th grade textbook. I remember because I got 50 pts "extra credit" for memorizing it...and the Gettysburg Address too.
mpchlets 13y ago
I watched this speech near every MLK day in the US while I was growing up, I remember sitting there not understanding it as I was in grammar school. We watched it on a large TV set that they rolled in on a cart. Granted I was in a 99% white school at the time, but the school was not for the rich - however they bought the necessary footage (I assume now, no idea). I distinctly remember Dr. King's voice, I will not forget it.
AznHisoka 13y ago
That's the secondary reason. Real reason: because I'm too lazy, and frankly don't really care.
Morst 13y ago
It is on spotify: http://open.spotify.com/track/2jtvgfG4XLPmr0BR6p1mk5 http://open.spotify.com/track/2jtvgfG4XLPmr0BR6p1mk5
bborud 13y ago
Let's not beat about the bush: the King Estate is a bunch of dumbasses and if they want Dr Martin Luther King to be forgotten, they are doing a great job.
jfranche 13y ago
'I Have a Dream' - Martin Luther King Jr. (audio only): http://fora.tv/1963/08/28/I_Have_a_Dream_Martin_Luther_King_Jr_audio_only http://fora.tv/1963/08/28/I_Have_a_Dream_Martin_Luther_King_...
paul_f 13y ago
Isn't the real problem the whole concept of for-profit textbooks? Without that, we, and our children could read and study these magnificent words.
pvaldes 13y ago
I'm feeling a little evil now... I have a dream. I dreamed with some bad guys writting with a felt-tip the complete speech in several walls in your cities, in a corner next of your schools. Ten point size is okay much more should be excessive. Then the good people; lawyers and copyright holders came to delete the illegal speechs from the walls, restoring the law and the order. This could be and extremely interesting social experiment, maybe even a piece of performance art. If there is a "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day", a "Mother's Day, a "World Sparrow day" and a day to play with rubber bats, candies and pumpkins; why not a "Everybody writes a famous speech day that changes our country for good it the corner of his/her street, in a paper airplane or in a ballon"? Could make a really beautiful local holiday...

505 points by chimeracoder 13y ago

I don't know about you all, but public school did an abysmal job of teaching me any US history post-WWII. It's like nothing has happened in this country since the women's suffrage movement, with WWII a hasty footnote. Honestly, I think the politics were too hot to handle through the 1980s, when cultural divides arout Vietnam were very fresh, and those from King's time still not too distant. What is being taught in high school nowadays?

bzbarsky 13y ago
I actually think this has more to do with the textbook authors not thinking of those time periods as "history" but as "current events" somehow and hence not feeling like a "history" book needs to include them. If you were in school about 15-20 years ago, and the textbooks were about 15 years old (pretty common), and the authors were in their 40s or 50s when writing them, then events of 60-65 years ago, so the late 40s and early 50s, would have corresponded to their teenage years... Once you get into the 70s or 80s, it's not just the textbook authors who think that way but also most of the teachers.

yread 13y ago

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

clicks 13y ago
And watch it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs Incidentally, please do take the 17 minutes to watch this speech (and perhaps follow along with yread's transcript link). It really is one of the greatest speeches ever given.
- hudibras 13y ago
  And keep in mind that MLK was 34 years old when he gave that speech. I'm trying hard not to think about what I was doing at that age...
  - speedyrev 13y ago
    Also keep in mind that the last portion starting with "I have a dream..." and following was all improvised. The original draft didn't include those words.
rthomas6 13y ago
Thank you for this. I had forgotten how powerful this speech is.
WalterSear 13y ago
So, not hidden behind a copyright wall?
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  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.
ebspelman 13y ago
And listen to it (while reading the transcript) here http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122701268 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1227012...

alexjeffrey 13y ago

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=i+have+a+dream&page=&utm_source=opensearch http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=i+have+a+dream&p... thank god for those who don't respect overzealous copyright holders.

rdl 13y ago
Indeed, YouTube was my first answer to this. We need more Huey P. Newton and Malcolm X for the issues of today (regulatory capture and the shredded constitution, political campaign finance, income/opportunity inequality being the main meta-issues), I think, rather than more MLK.
- andrewljohnson 13y ago
  MLK is just as useful for today's issues. This seems the same to me: Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksile...
- iends 13y ago
  You're saying we need more people who physically harm others?
  - rdl 13y ago
    Without the threat of someone more extreme, I don't believe someone like MLK can be terribly effective. I also don't think someone like MLK can work in a repressive regime which isn't generally subject to public will, or when trying to enforce human rights which are constitutionally protected, strongly wanted by a small affected population, but meaningless to the greater population. I can't see 50-80 year old non-technical voters caring about key escrow or mandatory data retention, even though it's an infringement of 1A/2A/4A/5A/6A/14A/+. (It's not violence per se, it's extremism. RMS is a copyright extremist, and that makes things easier for people like Lessig I think. Gilmore is a fly-without-papers extremist, etc.)

danso 13y ago

"I Have A Dream" shows the heights of humanity, and its copyright status shows the pettiness of humanity.

sczkid 13y ago

Here's a good summary of the copyright issue: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/08/27/i-have-a-dream-speech-still-private-property/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/08/...

Pxtl 13y ago
Interestingly it mentions that King himself was involved in suing people for selling videos of his speech, showing that the final lines of the blog article are wrong - he actually did enjoy the protections that copyright law offered him.
- scrabble 13y ago
  Did he also sue people who weren't profiting from his speech? I think those are very different things.

andrewljohnson 13y ago

Heard it during MLK Day on NPR, was absolutely floored. Also, MLK's comments on the Vietnam War were remarkably prescient, and apply just fine to our terrible wars today. If you still believe that the USG is not, in places and at times, terribly evil and corrupt, you probably don't know about the USG's efforts to kill MLK: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/31/mlk.fbi.conspiracy/ http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/31/mlk.fbi.conspiracy/

scassidy 13y ago
It doesn't sound like they tried to kill him. They tried to prove an alignment with the communist party (and failed miserably). I can't believe the FBI honestly thought a note would drive him to suicide.
- VonGuard 13y ago
  The FBI was doing a whole lot more than trying to link him to the communists. It was standard operation to infiltrate all civil rights groups. I don;t know specifically what they did to King's org, but the Black Panthers were fucked by the FBI. Malcom X's body guard, for example, was an undercover FBI agent. Most of the civil rights groups had undercover FBI inside them, and in high ranking positions. Yet another example of our government hating our freedoms.... Oh wait, I thought those were the terrorists....
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Can infiltrating the Black Panthers really be considered "anti-freedoms"? What freedoms, exactly? The freedom to be violent?
    - VonGuard 13y ago
      The Panthers did a LOT more than be violent. They opened soup kitchens, and housed the homeless. They were a terrific organization for helping people int heir communities. The violence and such was, actually, a product of the FBI. Just as they do today, the FBI embedded rabbel rousers in Panther events, and used them to touch off violence and whip up the crowd. The FBI actually encouraged the behavior they were there to prevent. They do the EXACT same thing in Occupy protests, today. The fact that you believe the Panthers were nothing more than a violent group shows that the FBI won this battle. Here, read up on the Panthers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party From the Wikipedia: Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover called the party "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country,"[13] and he supervised an extensive program (COINTELPRO) of surveillance, infiltration, perjury, police harassment and many other tactics designed to undermine Panther leadership, incriminate party members and drain the organization of resources and manpower. Through these tactics, Hoover hoped to diminish the Party's threat to the general power structure of the U.S., or even maintain its influence as a strong undercurrent.[14] Angela Davis, Ward Churchill, and others have alleged that federal, state and local law enforcement officials went to great lengths to discredit and destroy the organization, including assassination.[15][16][17] Black Panther Party membership reached a peak of 10,000 by early 1969, then suffered a series of contractions due to legal troubles, incarcerations, internal splits, expulsions and defections. Popular support for the Party declined further after reports appeared detailing the group's involvement in illegal activities such as drug dealing and extortion schemes directed against Oakland merchants.[18] By 1972 most Panther activity centered on the national headquarters and a school in Oakland, where the party continued to influence local politics. Party contractions continued throughout the 1970s; by 1980 the Black Panther Party comprised just 27 members.[19]

fnbaptiste 13y ago

I read the entirety in college. It was in a textbook I used to own. That in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which is also very much worth reading (found here: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h... )

gknoy 13y ago
I remember reading that about a year ago though Letters of Note (which is often excellent), and being absolutely blown away by how eloquent King was. It was an amazing letter.

unreal37 13y ago

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.

CoffeeDregs 13y ago
>The counter argument, though, is "How many >people have read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address"? Your counter-argument was about as valid as saying "How many people have needed freedom?" In any case, your counter-argument seems unrelated to the OP's post... Whether or not people would read or listen to the entire speech, the OP was arguing that copyright laws are impeding the creation of new content, the consumption of existing, important content and society's understanding of itself. >I think this says more about our "sound-bite" culture than >how protective the family is of the audio. Ironically, your comment represents the 'sound-bite' culture quite effectively.
- unreal37 13y ago
  Why are you making this about me?
jerf 13y ago
I'm pretty sure we read the whole thing in school. It was not long. Of course, probably only about 10% of us really understood what he meant by that phrase you quoted, but hey, at least the school system tried.
dalke 13y ago
My 9th grade English class had to memorize it.

rbellio 13y ago

I remember watching it on some encyclopedia product that came loaded on my HP back sometime around '95. They also had presidential speeches and the Hindenburg crash among other events. I thought I was the coolest kid ever to have access to such historical information at my home; that so much data could be stored on a simple CD.

jaynos 13y ago

On the Media did a great story on this [1]. If you've got 13 minutes to spare, they discuss the copyright issue and the actual construction and delivery of the speech itself. [1] http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/jan/13/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-and-public-imagination/ http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/jan/13/dr-martin-luther-king-...

Macsenour 13y ago

I remember hearing the story of how the text was written and at the last minute, as copies were being made, the lawyer for King added the Circle C and copyright info. Apparently the King family has benefitted financially by that last minute addition. Frankly, I can't imagine a better way to reward Dr. King, and his family, for such an amazing event and turning point in our history. It's not like the money is going to AT&T or Microsoft.

nanidin 13y ago
Unless copyright law has changed since then, the circle c doesn't matter. The way copyright works in the US, the rights to any creative work are automatically reserved for the author.
- Macsenour 13y ago
  I'm not an expert in copyright law by any means. I only recall the story I heard when the man who put the copyright information on the paper released a book a couple of years ago. I'm forgetting his name at the moment.
- mturmon 13y ago
  Yes, this aspect of copyright law has changed since the Sixties. The circled-C symbol (or the equivalent words) were required before 1989: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_copyright_law#Copyright_notices http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_copyright_law#Cop...
- daeken 13y ago
  This did in fact change since King's time. IIRC, what you say is true only after the adoption of the Berne convention in 1988.
- danielweber 13y ago
  That changed around 1989 with the Berne convention to be the way you describe.

mehulkar 13y ago

In 9th grade I memorized and delivered the I Have a Dream speech for my English Honors program. I memorized it by reading it over and over again and I also found an audio recording that I burned onto a CD and listened to 10 times every night. It took me 16 minutes to deliver the whole speech (in costume). I have no idea where I found the audio recording now, although NPR sounds right.

bennesvig 13y ago
I did the exact same thing. The teacher offered it as a way to move up a whole letter grade. Our textbook had the whole thing printed, but I also found it online at the time. Also downloaded the audio, though I'm not sure where from, since YouTube wasn't around then.

alayne 13y ago

King himself sued people over the copyright. We need to be careful not to revise history and turn people who did great things into saints.

chimeracoder 13y ago
> We need to be careful not to revise history and turn people who did great things into saints. That's true. I should have cut the last paragraph before posting, but now that it's out there and people have read it, I think it's best to let it stand.

slg 13y ago

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. Unlike the Gettysburg Address, this isn't some short speech that could be easily recited from memory. 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. Finally and probably most importantly, what do speeches really teach us? They aren't particularly valuable outside of context. How many of the speeches listed here (http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html) are really taught in school?

adcoelho 13y ago
I read the speech in English class when studying different types of writing assignments. We examined it for its structure rather than its content. Studying speeches may prove valuable when preparing oral presentations for instance.
- 3minus1 13y ago
  I also read it, in 10th grade English. I think we analyzed it's rhetorical effectiveness.
lowmagnet 13y ago
I disagreed with its title, because I have read it.
masklinn 13y ago
> 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 imagine people objecting to having the speech presented in a secular school. I wouldn't. > Finally and probably most importantly, what do speeches really teach us? They aren't particularly valuable outside of context. It's quite obvious that the speech would be put in context by and used within civil rights study.

ignostic 13y ago

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 soundbites and simple explanations. What we learned about Columbus, MLK, and all the founding fathers were stripped of everything controversial to create flawless heroes with views no PTA member would find offensive. How many of the influential speeches in history have you read? I think Time's list is a good starting place. These were all inspiring, influential, and are all readily available for free: http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1841228,00.html http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/... If you have read even half of these, maybe then I'll buy the copyright argument.

chimeracoder 13y ago
> The speech is readily found by those who know how to Google. Unfortunately, textbook are still a/the standard source of information in most public schools. Yes, this raises separate questions about the way that we structure our education system, but that's not the issue at hand. The speech is readily found by those willing to go out of their way to look for it, but it is not included in most textbooks, because those publishers would then have to pay royalties to the King estate (and indirectly pass those costs along to the schools). The video is much harder to find (legally, not illegally!), because the King estate controls it much more tightly.
- kamjam 13y ago
  Also, 15 years ago, most people had no idea who Google were, internet adoption was much lower, there was a vast majority of people who didn't even own a computer. Your points are still very valid, but something as significant as this should never have been copyright-able from day one. Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet. ~ Mark Twain
- wmeredith 13y ago

eplanit 13y ago

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-upset-over-mlk-memorial-inscription/ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/08/maya-angelou-u...)

JPKab 13y ago
Can someone please explain this? Do his children depend on the royalties for income?
- antc 13y ago
  No. Profits made from royalties go primarily into funding The King Center. http://www.thekingcenter.org/ http://www.thekingcenter.org/
  - nostromo 13y ago
    And who works for the King Center? MLK's kids. So yes, royalties go to the King Center, which at least in part, go to his children, including MLK III. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_III
    - res0nat0r 13y ago
      And this is bad...how? They are working to further MLK's goals.
      - angersock 13y ago
        I haven't seen anything that they've done of recent merit in the news lately.

michielvoo 13y ago

Actually, it was printed in full yesterday in the Dutch newspaper NRC Next.

ArtDev 13y ago

Copyrighted by EMI/Sony: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/copyright-king-why-the-i-have-a-dream-speech-still-isn-t-free http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/copyright-king-why-the-i-ha... There is some effort to make it public (as it should be): http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/internet-activists-are-waging-a-guerrilla-war-to-free-martin-luther-king-from-copyright http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/internet-activists-are-wagi...

jared314 13y ago

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 seen the Dr. King, Jr. version of the Obama-hitler posters of 2008, or his face on a box of children's cereal. [1] http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/mlk_speech/ http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/mlk_spee... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_of_Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.,_Inc._v._CBS,_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_of_Martin_Luther_King,_J....

metric10 13y ago
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.
- jared314 13y ago
  > 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.
  - hearty777 13y ago
    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-thin-line-of-choices-martin-luther-king-and-hitler?p=t-shirt http://www.redbubble.com/people/artofmewa/works/8484381-the-...
    - jared314 13y ago

azernik 13y ago

From someone (not me) who's dealt with publishing excerpts in a book, at least one major publisher's lawyers have decided that the text of the speech was indeed a "public performance" - given in a public place, and broadcast on public radio - and therefore not under copyright. The King family are apparently notoriously insistent on high royalties for any use of the estate's copyrighted works, but they seem to only have a firm lock on the video recordings. (Of course, this may be something that has yet to be tested in court, so Don't Try This At Home unless you have the money for a large lawsuit.)

joshvm 13y ago

Yet Fox News published it not two days ago: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/27/transcript-martin-luther-king-jr-have-dream-speech/ http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/27/transcript-martin-luthe...

chimeracoder 13y ago
Chances are they had to pay for it, since that probably did not fall under "fair use" (they are a commercial entity, using the speech as part of their commercial purposes). Unfortunately, the same can be said about textbook publishers, and most of them don't pay for it. Worse, the video is much more heavily controlled by the King estate than the printed text.

mrt0mat0 13y ago

National Archives... Seemed pretty freely available to me http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

s32dA 13y ago

This is one of the most widely circulated speeches on the internet. If you Google "I Have A Dream Speech", you'll get the pdf, origial text and full video. What a stupid post.

slacka 13y ago
I can also Google "Man of Steel (2013) torrent" and download a copy in minutes. That doesn't make it legal. Likewise, you can't stream or show "I Have A Dream Speech" or "Man of Steel" to an audience without violating copyright laws. The real stupidity are our laws extending copyright to 70 years after death, so backwards that many people just chose to ignore them.

snicklepuff 13y ago

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?

wehadfun 13y ago
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.
- snicklepuff 13y ago
  I was jumping around chronologically, the video was shown by a teacher I had in high school. That wasn't clear, sorry.
freditup 13y ago
I don't think so. I distinctly remember discussing it multiple times throughout grade school and watching it at least once.

steevejubs 13y ago

سمَـَّوُوُحخ ̷̴̐خ ̷̴̐خ ̷̴̐خ امارتيخ ̷̴̐خ

LukeShu 13y ago

> ... 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.

chimeracoder 13y ago
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!
- LukeShu 13y ago
  Most text copies you find are transcripts of what he actually said, not the script he was reading. It's easy to tell the difference, because the phrase "I have a dream" isn't in the script he was reading!

Shivetya 13y ago

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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6290716 which leads to http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-you-wont-see-or-hear-the-i-have-a-dream-speech/2013/08/27/09d2a07a-0e66-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html 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 estate is just greedy above all else.

acjohnson55 13y ago
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.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

bpatrianakos 13y ago

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 deliver it?" Though he understood the significance of the march and probably knew his speech was important is there any evidence to suggest he knew how iconic it would become? And even if he did, was he going to forego addressing his audience, the people assembled at the Lincoln Memorial, to make a statement on copyright? It's doubtful. His speech was for the audience there. The fact that it could be reprinted and studied by future generations is just a bonus. The idea that King would be less likely to deliver his speech because of copyright is not realistic. That said, this also isn't a convincing argument for the abolition of copyright either. I don't know if that was the point though. What this does show is how a copyright can serve the opposite of its intended purpose and hurt society. But for every case like the King speech there are plenty more that are examples of its benefit. It's disappointing that we do not have free and open access to the I Have a Dream speech but its not a good argument against copyright. Copyright is still an issue that boils down to its use and has to be considered on a case by case basis. I don't think it ever has been all good or all bad and overlooking the vast sea of nuance there doesn't help proponents or opponents of it.

danielweber 13y ago
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. 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.
drivingmenuts 13y ago
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.

runjake 13y ago

I both read and heard the speech entirely in high school back in the 80s. We spent something like 2-3 days on it and MLK's life during that period. Is the author (and submitter, who's the same person) working off a false premise?

chimeracoder 13y ago
> Is the author (and submitter, who's the same person) working off a false premise? A large portion of this was affected by a lawsuit from 1999, so keep that in mind[0][1] Also, students today are not prevented from reading the speech; however, the teacher must find a copy online and print it out and distribute it to the students - the point is that most textbooks will not be able to publish/include it. As for the video recording, yes that's been much more heavily restricted. [0]http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/194_F3d_1211.htm http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/194_F3d_1211.htm [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_of_Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.,_Inc._v._CBS,_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_of_Martin_Luther_King,_J....

ghaff 13y ago

Apparently the Churchill estate is also very aggressive about royalties for speeches and written works by Winston Churchill: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130118/16193821734/churchills-heirs-seek-to-lose-future-charging-biographer-to-quote-his-words.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130118/16193821734/church...

mintplant 13y ago

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.

chimeracoder 13y ago
> 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.
- publicfig 13y ago
  I know that McDougal includes it in their teachings. Here's the lesson plan that I learned off of and that is still taught now: http://www.classzone.com/books/language_of_lit_gr07/page_build.cfm?content=sl_dream_u2&u=2 http://www.classzone.com/books/language_of_lit_gr07/page_bui...
ghx 13y ago
Same here. I read it in school during Black History Month just about every year as a kid. I don't think teachers worry about getting sued by the King estate for photocopying the speech, any more than they worry about kids singing Happy Birthday in class.

jsta 13y ago

My retort: http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/national/i-have-a-dream-speech-full-text-martin-luther-king-jrs-words-on-aug-28-1963 http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/national/i-have-a-dream-speech...

wehadfun 13y ago

>ask the people sitting near you if they’ve ever heard the >opening lines: >"I am happy to join with you today..." If you are a Michael Jackson fan this was included on the song History.

philliescurt 13y ago

Second result on google: http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

Medea 13y ago

We actually read the full speech in school and watched the youtube video. We got it as a copy from a textbook called "Speeches that changed the world" by Simon Sebag Montefiore. You can get the ebook from the google play store. From the free sample it seems like they got permission to reproduce copyrigth material from The Estate of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=jPArcMn728kC https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=jPArcMn728kC

lnanek2 13y ago

This was done intentionally by MLK with the proceeds used for good works last time I looked into it. So, amusingly, articles like this are kind of written out of ignorance as to the speech itself.

chimeracoder 13y ago
> This was done intentionally by MLK with the proceeds used for good works last time I looked into it. Irrespective of this, it reduces the number of textbooks that can publish the text of the speech to (almost) zero, since most publishers can't afford it. This is a value judgement and therefore subjective, but I don't believe it's worth it.

russellsprouts 13y ago

My English textbook in high school had the text of the speech, and on MLK day we watched a portion of the video.

Theory5 13y ago

Throughout my college years, I had a poster with his entire speech on one of my walls. Unfortunately, tape is not good to posters so I don't have it anymore. I also had John Lennon's Imagine as poster.

pca 13y ago

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.

chimeracoder 13y ago
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.

mistercow 13y ago

Prediction: major copyright holder will buy the rights and then license them liberally to get rid of this embarrassing poster child for copyright reform. Actually scratch that, it's not a prediction. It would be smart, but it probably won't happen.

ISL 13y ago

His speech is featured at least once a year (and it was on a few nights ago) on NPR on KUOW. His Massey Lectures are also publicly available: http://www.prx.org/series/31037 http://www.prx.org/series/31037

tehabe 13y ago

I own a German biography of Martin Luther King by Frederik Hetmann (1979), which includes a German translation of the speech. I'm sure the translation is copyrighted under German law.

bennesvig 13y ago

In high school I memorized the entire speech word for word to move my grade from a B to an A. I've read it many, many, many times.

_mulder_ 13y ago

Those in the UK can listen to the speech, in full, for free on iPlayer. It's not Kings original recording but it's respoken by notable civil rights personalities. Just look for I Have A Dream on iPlayer, BBC Radio 4

EGreg 13y ago

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs Text: http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf WUT!

aroman 13y ago

Maybe I'm the exception, but I never experienced anything but easy access to the speech. A few months ago I googled it and got the full text and great YouTube video taping of it. No issues.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

It's interesting the version from the US National Archives (http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf) has (top of page 5) different wording to the speech (IIRC) My own little children ... shall be judged not by the color of their skin Vs My four small children ... shall not be judged by ... "Shall be judged not" is the speech and just the memory with its crackling soundtrack gets me. It's odd how even with a prepared speech he still belted out a better version on the day. Edit: oh yes - anyone wanting to improve their accent before the next YC interviews could do a lot lot worse than have MLK playing through their headphones each day. Learn from the very best.

MarcScott 13y ago

There was a move earlier in the year on "Internet Freedom Day' for everyone to share the video of the speech, anywhere they could, in defiance of the copyright. Not sure what traction there was. http://boingboing.net/2013/01/18/its-internet-freedom-day-ti.html http://boingboing.net/2013/01/18/its-internet-freedom-day-ti...

anigbrowl 13y ago

This is a much, much better article on the same subject: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-you-wont-see-or-hear-the-i-have-a-dream-speech/2013/08/27/09d2a07a-0e66-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-you-wont-see-or-h...

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago

It's on YouTube, although I don't know if it's complete: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

sarreph 13y ago

But... It's here? http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

andrelaszlo 13y ago

http://www.ibtimes.com/i-have-dream-speech-full-transcript-video-read-dr-martin-luther-king-jrs-1963-speech-its-50th http://www.ibtimes.com/i-have-dream-speech-full-transcript-v...

tomphoolery 13y ago

I love how you equate "access" with "reading". Especially given the highly rhetoric tone of the speech, reading it to me would just be doing the whole thing a disservice. A good chunk of what makes that speech successful is his awesome use of rhetoric and repitition to get his point across. It's a really dumbass comparison but IMO Chris Rock does the same thing, he'll repeat a concept over and over to the audience in between doing jokes about the concept. I think these are two sides to the same coin, rhetoric goes a LONG way when convincing others that your words are truth in public. We studied this speech in my high school, as well as speeches by FDR and John F. Kennedy (sidenote: why are all great public speakers referred to by the initials that make up their name? MLK, FDR, JFK, etc.). We studied the speech to learn more about rhetoric and how an orator can twist common words into powerful devices for convincing you to believe in their ideas. Oh and by the way? we read it too. This was to emphasize how much more powerful the speech is when SPOKEN rather than read. It's really not that fun to read, the sentences are so repetitive, short and simple that it's hard to believe an educated man wrote them, but that is of course the purpose of such speeches...you speak them in such a way that the simple becomes complex and weak words become powerful.

romilgarg4 13y ago

Totally agree.

romilgarg4 13y ago

Totally agree.

diminoten 13y ago

Ah yes, I love it when "Hacker News readers" becomes a thing. Just like, "Redditors have pointed out via YouTube comments..."

jhuckestein 13y ago

FWIW everyone in my school in Germany read the entire speech in English class.

dmead 13y ago

false. did a paper on it in college.

ghshephard 13y ago

150 used, starting at $0.65 - I don't really think this material is that difficult to acquire. http://www.amazon.com/Have-Dream-Writings-Speeches-Anniversary/dp/0062505521 http://www.amazon.com/Have-Dream-Writings-Speeches-Anniversa... ""I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World," by Martin Luther King, Jr., is a fine collection of texts by this important figure. The book has been edited by James M. Washington. Coming in at less than 300 pages, this is a concise but meaty book. Washington includes King's most important texts: the "Letter from Birmingham Jail"; the "I Have a Dream" speech; his Nobel Prize acceptance speech; "My Trip to the Land of Gandhi"; "A Time to Break Silence," his 1967 speech criticizing the United States war in Vietnam, and more. These writings and speeches cover King's great themes: nonviolent resistance, the African-American civil rights movement, etc."

Raphael 13y ago

Image not available pending copyright permission http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/mcc:@field(DOCID+@lit(mcc/029) http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/mcc:@field(DOCID...)

ww3 13y ago

http://archive.org/details/MLKDream http://archive.org/details/MLKDream http://www.ushistory.org/documents/i-have-a-dream.htm http://www.ushistory.org/documents/i-have-a-dream.htm Someone who claimed that was inaccessible makes it to the front page? We need moderators.

raymondh 13y ago

The full text of the speech is in the National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

Bulkington 13y ago

Can we officially retire this discussion, apres anniversary? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3474526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3474526

robmiller 13y ago

It was in my 8th grade textbook. I remember because I got 50 pts "extra credit" for memorizing it...and the Gettysburg Address too.

mpchlets 13y ago

I watched this speech near every MLK day in the US while I was growing up, I remember sitting there not understanding it as I was in grammar school. We watched it on a large TV set that they rolled in on a cart. Granted I was in a 99% white school at the time, but the school was not for the rich - however they bought the necessary footage (I assume now, no idea). I distinctly remember Dr. King's voice, I will not forget it.

AznHisoka 13y ago

That's the secondary reason. Real reason: because I'm too lazy, and frankly don't really care.

Morst 13y ago

It is on spotify: http://open.spotify.com/track/2jtvgfG4XLPmr0BR6p1mk5 http://open.spotify.com/track/2jtvgfG4XLPmr0BR6p1mk5

bborud 13y ago

Let's not beat about the bush: the King Estate is a bunch of dumbasses and if they want Dr Martin Luther King to be forgotten, they are doing a great job.

jfranche 13y ago

'I Have a Dream' - Martin Luther King Jr. (audio only): http://fora.tv/1963/08/28/I_Have_a_Dream_Martin_Luther_King_Jr_audio_only http://fora.tv/1963/08/28/I_Have_a_Dream_Martin_Luther_King_...

paul_f 13y ago

Isn't the real problem the whole concept of for-profit textbooks? Without that, we, and our children could read and study these magnificent words.

pvaldes 13y ago

I'm feeling a little evil now... I have a dream. I dreamed with some bad guys writting with a felt-tip the complete speech in several walls in your cities, in a corner next of your schools. Ten point size is okay much more should be excessive. Then the good people; lawyers and copyright holders came to delete the illegal speechs from the walls, restoring the law and the order. This could be and extremely interesting social experiment, maybe even a piece of performance art. If there is a "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day", a "Mother's Day, a "World Sparrow day" and a day to play with rubber bats, candies and pumpkins; why not a "Everybody writes a famous speech day that changes our country for good it the corner of his/her street, in a paper airplane or in a ballon"? Could make a really beautiful local holiday...