Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 17th Jan 2012 13:13 UTC
"Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech is considered 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 in PBS documentaries - 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 of the King Center's website. If you want to watch the whole thing, legally, you'll need to get the $20 DVD." I'm probably too young and too non-American to really fully grasp just how important Mr King was to a segregated America, but the fact that his influential and world-changing speeches are locked up because of copyright, as well as the fact that EMI is actually actively pursuing its copyright, is downright insane. If anybody ever needed even more proof the content industry is a vile, rotting, stinking and utterly putrid clump of pure, concentrated evil, this is it. Absolutely unbelievable.
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Member since:2005-12-02
I am not sure he actually gave the speech in a "public" place. Further, as the author he has some rights to how its distributed. I don't like the way it is but not sure how I would change things.
The speech was given on August 28, 1963. It was given in Washington, DC in front of the Lincoln Memorial. This is most definitely a public place.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-04-10
I am not sure he actually gave the speech in a "public" place. Further, as the author he has some rights to how its distributed. I don't like the way it is but not sure how I would change things.
Sure you get a temporary monopoly on your work but 70+ years? I would love to get paid over and over again for the same work I did decades ago but I wouldn't find it fair.
Member since:2007-03-26
Sure you get a temporary monopoly on your work but 70+ years? I would love to get paid over and over again for the same work I did decades ago but I wouldn't find it fair.
Indeed - the whole thing is absurd.
My girlfriend is a school teacher and it would be great if she got royalties for every occasion that her pupils applied lessons they'd learned from her - both present and any time in the future. However the world doesn't work that way - or at least shouldn't.
Member since:2006-07-26
Well, part of the issue is that he isn't the author for a fair portion of his works. He plagiarized a great deal (that we know), including the ending of his "I Have A Dream" speech. That said, he was a great orator that brought about a great social change, but his family has some gall to use copyright like this.
Features
Linked by David Adams on 05/16/13 4:23 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/16/13 9:29 UTC
The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/15/13 22:44 UTC
Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote about why OSNews was no longer OSNews: the alternative operating system scene had died, and OSNews, too, had to go with the times and move towards reporting on a new wave of operating systems - mobile, and all the repercussions that the explosion of smartphones and tablets have caused. Still, I was wondering something today: why aren't we seeing alternative operating systems on mobile?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/14/13 18:22 UTC, submitted by MOS6510
You can say what you will about Windows Phone and Windows 8's Metro interface (I refuse to drop that name) - it's inefficient, unpopular, cumbersome, beautiful, ugly, organised, clean, limiting - but there's one thing we can all agree on: it's unique and distinctive. CNet has published a profile of Microsoft's Albert Shum, the man behind Metro, and he highlights what I think is at the very core of Microsoft's problems in mobile right now.More Features »
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Member since:
2006-01-14
I am not sure he actually gave the speech in a "public" place. Further, as the author he has some rights to how its distributed. I don't like the way it is but not sure how I would change things.