This is interesting on a number of levels. I'm part of the minority around here that is in favor of copyright but don't write me off as a knee-jerk reaction to my stance.

An article like this could easily become a rallying cry for abolishing copyright but when you dig deeper it really doesn't lend itself to total copyright abolishment as much as you'd think.

It's interesting when you bear in mind that Dr. Martin Luther King held copyright on this speech and used the copyright laws to control how his speech was used. The way he wielded the power afforded to him by copyright is a great argument for copyright, not against it! If we make some conservative assumptions based on his actions and what we know of the man then it's safe to say he would allow the speech to become part of PBS documentaries but not used in corporate advertisements. Isnt it fair to believe that most of us these days would agree that his Dream speech be used in historical documentaries and other works that promote his legacy but be upset if we saw that speech used in a Nike commercial?

What I'm getting at here is that copyright itself isn't bad. It's how it is used that can be harmful but not always. Using copyright to keep MLK's legacy from being sullied is a legitimate and reasonable use for copyright. This particular case reminds us that copyright can be used for good too. If we fast forward to today and consider the King estate's attempt to make money from Dr. King's legacy we see what I'd call a gray area. Not everyone would want to see money being made in MLK's name. But far more people don't want to see the right to his words and likeness belonging to a corporation like EMI.

I want to encourage all of us to take a less extreme, more balanced perspective on this. Laws like SOPA/PIPA have backed us into a corner where we're forced to take extreme positions against extreme laws but here amongst friends, why not discuss this in a balanced way and save the extremism for fighting those with equally extreme stances on the other side? I do support copyright but I don't support it in its entirety. This story is a prime example of why the length of copyright needs to be limited. But this isn't only about copyright. We forget that other US laws in combination with copyright are what cause some of the trouble. Corporations should not be considered people. I think taking a stance that promotes complete abolishment of copyright is like chopping off your head to cure a headache.

The "I Have a Dream" speech should be in the public domain by now, there's no question about it. Copyright has hurt us in this case but while Dr. King was alive it had every opportunity to help us. It could have ensured that his speech wasn't taken advantage of. We seem to forget that copyright helps us promote freedom just as much as it can be used to restrict it. It can help ensure not just freedom as in liberty but freedom as in gratis, for free, free beer, pay zero moneys. We can't stop people from using copyright in ways we don't approve of without abolishing it but abolishing it opens another can of worms. So instead let's focus on trying to make copyright a little more sane, less biased, by scaling it back instead of ripping out our hearts to cure high cholesterol (I didn't want to use the chopping heads to cure headaches metaphor again, hopefully that wasn't too awkward a metaphor).