The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals copyright case Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc. (1999) resolves a long standing dispute about the public domain copyright status of Martin Luther King Jr's greatest speech known as I have a dream originally delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C on August 28, 1963.
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2 The ruling 3 Legal analysis 4 Concurring reasons 5 External link |
The facts of the underlying dispute are as follows: when King made his speech publicly to a large audience both live and televised it had not been submitted to the Registrar of Copyright to obtain federal copyright protection. Under state law common law copyright only subsisted before publication of the work, so, it was argued that the work had been published to the general public when he gave the speech with extensive media coverage and by so doing the speech entered the public domain and could be freely copied and distributed by third parties. However, Dr. King did register the work the next month as being an unpublished work and after his death his estate filed this lawsuit in order to enforce the copyright.
The 11th circuit of the United States Court of Appeals ruled that the public performance of his speech did not constitute "general publication" and thus by giving this speech in public he did not 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.
The case is analyzed under the previous copyright law, the Copyright Act of 1909 ("1909 Act"), rather than the Copyright Act of 1976 ("1976 Act") as the previous act was in force when the facts arose. Under the 1909 statute common law copyright subsisted until a work was published. As the 1909 Act did not comply with the automatic protection of the Berne Convention statutory copyright could only be obtained by completing the necessary formalities, i.e. by registering the work with the Registrar of Copyrights in Washington D.C.. CBS argued that Dr. King had not complied with the statute, and thus, by performing the work, he essentially granted it to the public domain. His estate argued to the contrary that the work had never been published at the time of its initial performance by Dr. King and thus retained common law copyright. The public performance of the work did not consitute a "general publication" of the work but rather was a "limited pubication" that did not divest common law rights.
There are two ways in which a general publication may occur. First, a general publication occurs if tangible copies of the work are distributed to the general public in such a manner as allows the public to exercise dominion and control over the work. Second, a general publication may occur if the work is exhibited or displayed in such a manner as to permit unrestricted copying by the general public.
Case law also shows that distribution to the news media, as opposed to the general public, for the purpose of enabling the reporting of a contemporary newsworthy event, is only a limited publication.
From the judgement of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals:
The main judgment was given by Chief Judge Anderson, and Senior Circuit Judges Roney, and Cook. Judge Cook gave separate concurring reasons. He does not accept the limited v. general publication rule as being determinative; his thinking centers around the fact that no tangible copy without a copyright notice (which was required by the law at that time) was distributed before the registration of the work. This fact taken together with the oral speech being distributed to the media determines that the copyright was not put into the public domain.
The facts
The ruling
Legal analysis
General v. limited publication
Distribution to the news media
Concurring reasons
External link
