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Comment by dv_dt | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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