Celebrating the Dream: 7 Interesting Facts About MLK Jr. Day

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Monday, January 15, 2018

A Copyrighted Figure

The film 'Selma' hits theaters across the U.S. on Christmas Day, Thursday, December 25, 2014. — The film "Selma" hits theaters across the U.S. on Christmas Day, Thursday, December 25, 2014. | (Photo: Facebook/SelmaMovie)

When celebrating Dr. King's legacy, media entities have to be careful, as the King Estate keeps a strict copyright control over his speeches and images.

Networks and others who fail to pay money to broadcast items like King's famed "I Have a Dream" speech have found themselves in court.

"In the 1990s, the estate sued USA Today for publishing the full text of the 'I Have a Dream' speech King delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963, and the newspaper quickly settled by paying for a license and attorneys' fees," wrote Jonathan Band, a copyright lawyer and Georgetown University Law Center adjunct professor in a 2015 Politico article.

"The estate then sued CBS for including footage of the speech in a segment of its documentary series 'The 20th Century with Mike Wallace' ... The trial court agreed with CBS, but an appellate court reversed and ruled in favor of the MLK estate on narrow technical grounds."

For the 2014 movie "Selma," filmmakers were forced to paraphrase the civil rights leader's words since they were licensed out to another company.