I Have a Dream

"I Have a Dream" is both the identifying phrase of and popular name for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s most famous speech, an important part of the American Civil Rights Movement. The speech was delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial as part of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. It speaks powerfully and eloquently of King's desire for a future where blacks and whites would coexist harmoniously and as equals.

Copyright controversy

King filed for copyright registration of his speech (as was then required by U.S. copyright law) one month later. Numerous republications of the speech led to years of court cases, in various jurisdictions, over the question of the copyright's validity, based primarily on the speech having been made in public before an audience rather than published, which under 1963 law could have placed the speech in the public domain. The King family continued the lawsuits after his death. Finally, on November 5, 1999, in Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc., the 11th circuit of the United States Court of Appeals ruled that the public performance of his speech did not constitute "general publication" nor did it forfeit his copyright. Thus, King's estate is able to require a license fee for redistribution of the speech, whether in a television program, a history book, a dramatic re-enactment, or otherwise.

Related Topics:
U.S. copyright law - Public domain - Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc. - Estate

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