Copyright King: Why the "I Have a Dream" Speech Still Isn't Free Posted byAlex_Pasternack <http://motherboard.vice.com/profiles/alex_pasternack>on Monday, Jan 16, 2012 Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech isconsidered <http://www.news.wisc.edu/releases/3504.html>one of the most recognizable collection of words in American history. It's the rhetorical equivalent of a national treasure or a national park. The National Park Service inscribed it on the Lincoln Memorial and the Library of Congress put it into its National Recording Registry. So we might hold it to be self evident that it can be spread freely. Not exactly. Any unauthorized usage of the speech and a number of other speeches by King -- including inPBSdocumentaries -- is a violation of American law. You'd be hard pressed to find a good complete video version on the web, and it's not even to be found in the new digital archive ofthe King Center's website <http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive>. If you want to watch the whole thing, legally, you'll need toget the $20DVD <https://www.thekingcentergifts.com/default.aspx?p=viewitem&item=MLKAUD0001&s...>. That's because the King estate, and, as of 2009, the British music publishing conglomerateEMIPublishing <http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090317/FREE/903179967>, owns the copyright of the speech and its recorded performance. While the copyright restrictionisn't news <http://motherboard.vice.com/2011/8/29/the-copyright-nightmare-of-i-have-a-dr...>, EMI's unusual role in policing the use of King's words -- the first instance of the company taking on a non-music based intellectual property catalog -- hasn't been widely reported. In November 2011,EMIGroup wasauctioned off <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204224604577031694160429400.ht...>, and the publishing business was sold to a consortium run by Sony Corp for $2.2 billion. The awkward tussle over MLK's words bears recounting, especially giventhe ongoing controversy overSOPA <http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/1/16/sopa-is-on-the-chopping-block-but-the-...>, which targets copyright infringements on the Internet -- and highlights all sorts ofproblems <http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/1/13/sopa-backers-are-pirates-themselves>with our aging copyright system andgeneral ignorance <http://motherboard.vice.com/2011/12/16/dear-congress-it-s-no-longer-ok-to-not-know-how-the-internet-works>about how ideas actually spread in the digital age: [...] Continua qui: http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/1/16/copyright-king-why-the-i-have-a-dream-...