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Comment by dmitriid | Hacker News Reader

If we're talking about significance though...

Dr. Martin Luther King wrote and delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech more than fifty years ago. When he obtained copyright protection on the speech in 1963... the copyright on the “I Have a Dream” speech will not expire until the end of 2058. Because the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. and its affili- ates have closely guarded the speech in a copyright enforcement and li- censing sense, the public seldom sees more than snippets of one of the most highly regarded speeches in history.

https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/iplj/vol25/iss4/2/

And there are many more examples like this. Copyright was supposed to foster creativity and the distribution of knowledge. Know it's used to stifle competition, and to protect corporate interests.

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I don't think one can really blame the Estate of Martin Luther King for enforcing the rights given to them by law. I think instead of "closely guarding" the speech, it's just enforcement of their copyright.

More blame should be laid that copyright law in general has extended the time frame all at a time when receiving the compensation from the works happens faster than ever. And it has extended it to such a length, it increases the chances of losing works to missed archival for all but the most popular material.

Of course you can blame someone for doing something they freely choose to do; that's what blame is.

They are under no obligation to enforce the copyright and refuse a liberal license.

Anyway, archiving is exempted from copyright.

http://www.copyrightuser.org/educate/intermediaries/archives...

They are under no obligation to give out something for free just because others think they should. Do we blame authors for not giving away their books for free?

Archiving under some strict prohibitions are possible, but it's sort of a narrow window which is difficult for e.g. abandoned commercial works.

> They are under no obligation to give out something for free just because others think they should

In the same vein, they are under no obligation to _not_ give it away from free. Their actions are purely a choice, free from obligation. That said, lack of obligation does not act as a shield from criticism. Quite the opposite.

Do we equally criticise the children of Frank Sinatra for holding and enforcing copyrights to his songs, what about Walt Disney, or the widow of Dr. Seuss. Why are the descendants of Martin Luther King singled out, but not those of other culturally popular works? Whose works do we get to morally appropriate and shame people for not giving away for free?

Personally, I might blame the descendants of Disney the most if they had significant voting shares in Disney Corp, but as to the rest I doubt played a key role in the expanding copyright to the degree it has today.

I think we can really blame Disney here as well, but the really terrible thing is that the 'benefits' are not even accruing to Walt's descendants, but to shareholders of the corp. I personally think that children shouldn't have any rights, and ideally copyright would expire after a reasonable time (not even for a creator's full lifetime, and certainly not after their death). However, it seems more reasonable for those rights to be held by the creator's descendants rather than a publicly traded corporation.

> I don't think one can really blame the Estate of Martin Luther King for enforcing the rights given to them by law.

You can absolutely blame people for doing that. An action's legality and blameworthiness are completely separate things. Many legal things are blameworthy (e.g. talking in a movie theater, adultery, tricking people into eating items their religion forbids). The idea that you can't blame people for doing things they're allowed to do under the law seems to assume that everything bad should be illegal, which would result in a pretty draconian state of affairs.

> public seldom sees more than snippets of one of the most highly regarded speeches in history

Are you saying none of these is the full speech? Some are even explicitly labeled as such.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=martin+luther+k...

The full text of the speech also is widely available, including via the National Archives in the U.S.:

https://www.archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.p...

the public seldom sees more than snippets of one of the most highly regarded speeches in history.

It's not exactly hard to find, and perfectly legally:

http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_76C3B93B557D4976A032C27C...

http://openvault.wgbh.org/terms-and-conditions

> You may not remove, copy, alter, reproduce, modify, create derivative works of, republish, post, publicly perform, publicly display, broadcast, download, transmit, distribute, license or commercially exploit, in whole or in part, the Content or this Site, except as expressly permitted by these Terms, the functionality of the Site, or, if applicable, by the respective content owner as indicated in any end user license agreement, if any, that accompanies such Content, provided that you include without modification all copyright and other proprietary notices contained in the Content. [1]

Even though the content on the site itself may be used in personal and educational setting, the content may be covered by additional licenses. And oh boy, does "I Have a Dream" have a license. And King Estate is more than happy to sue you over it. More details, are here: http://www.trademarkandcopyrightlawblog.com/2018/01/martin-l... and here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/08/...

In their prior comment, the parent said "the public seldom sees more than snippets" of the speech, which obviously isn't true (see both my and icebraining's replies for many examples). Now the parent is criticizing the license but that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone from watching or reading the speech. What is really the point here?

No, the parent is correct. While it is possible to find the original, it is legally tricky to show it. Thus somebody who doesn't go out of their way probably will not see it.

>may be used in personal and educational setting //

No such Fair Use exemptions exist in a lot of countries. We have relatively Draconian Fair Dealing in UK, in which there is no general personal exemption nor an educational exemption.

Schools are supposed to have music licences if they have a TV licence because music played in a TV broadcast would otherwise amount to an illegal performance/distribution. It's beyond ridiculous.

Ripping a CD using iTunes is tortuous in the UK, for example. In theory Apple are contributory infringers but the absurd breadth of the copyright law isn't there to hold corporations to account ...

Presumably tortuous use of King's works would be prosecuted in the jurisdiction in which it is used.

Minor note, maybe you're just the victim of autocorrect: you want "tortious" (with an 'i'), not "tortuous". The latter is "pertaining to torture", not "to torts".

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