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Comment by masklinn | Hacker News Reader

> If schools really wanted to teach it, it would be well within fair use laws for them to show the whole thing.

No, not a chance. Even a few paragraphs would likely get them smashed, especially if they're the most interesting of the speech.

> First one that comes to mind is its length.

Have people stopped studying books or something?

> Secondly, there is a lot of religious imagery in the speech. I could certainly imagine people objecting to having the speech presented in a secular school.

I wouldn't.

> Finally and probably most importantly, what do speeches really teach us? They aren't particularly valuable outside of context.

It's quite obvious that the speech would be put in context by and used within civil rights study.

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Even a few paragraphs would likely get them smashed, especially if they're the most interesting of the speech.

I second this point. Under the Fair Use doctrine, courts consider not just the amount of text used, but the so-called substantiality of the excerpt. In other words, even a small portion of the text may not be fair use if it's especially iconic and representative of the whole.

I can tell you that in middle school at a public school in New Orleans, I had to read, summarize and write a paper reaction to the speech, as well as having watched the video.

Schools have successfully used copyrighted books all the time in literature classes without problems. You can't run it off yourself on the mimeograph machine but just go buy 30 copies and leave them in the classroom.

I was about to question whether or not you knew if this particular speech is actually available in its entirey anywhere that could be used as a source without potentially infringing copyright, but here it is available for download from the US National Archives:

http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

Wouldn't distributing that file be considered copyright infringement? Just because you can legally access it there doesn't mean you have the right to redistribute. Sure you could direct your students there, but you can't do the copying yourself if I am not mistaken. Seems like picking up 20-30 copies off amazon would be easier.

The intended use in important. If a teacher distributes the speech in order to teach a lesson about it, it is very different than if a business man sell a book of the speech. Furthermore, the negative publicity from suing a teacher, using Martin Luther King Jr's speech to teach about civil rights should make any teacher completely safe from lawsuits.

Possible publicity is a pretty weak protection compared to actual legality, and I can't imagine a regular teacher (I'm excluding highly idealistic teachers, but those are few and far strewn) would risk their job illegally distributing those texts/videos, if there is even a quanta of possibility that that happens.

Teachers aren't the idealized constructs they often use to teach.

That's assuming you CAN buy the book/speech.

You can buy it in written form, audio form, or DVD form and you can license it for placement in a book.

Here is even an illustrated form for children with a CD: http://amzn.com/0375858873

Of course they can. That's not the issue. The issue is that textbook publishers cannot (or will not) include the speech in their books, because then they would have to pay royalties (and indirectly pass along those costs to the schools).

Furthermore, use of the video is much more heavily controlled by the King estate.

because then they would have to pay royalties

The issue is the price not the payment per-se.

Schoolbooks are full of stuff that is copyrighted. The photos explicitly are.

We still have Norton's Antologies, right? Many of those are 100% filled with copyrighted works they need to pay royalties on. And they do. And everything works out just fine.

> mimeograph machine

Showing your age? :)

In 2003-ish, while I was getting my BS, the professor passed out some of those funny-smelling purple sheets. I hadn't seen them since probably second grade (mid-1980's). Apparently both the copiers were broken, but there was still an old mimeograph sitting in the corner, she tried it, and it still worked.

Wow, I said mimeograph entirely as a joke, I didn't think anyone had used them this century.

So funny. I can instantly recall that smell to this day.

They have also been successfully sued a number of times for course packets, so they tend to be very careful.

So buy it. The same way they would study Shel Silverstein poems.

> Schools have successfully used copyrighted books all the time in literature classes without problems.

That is a completely different issue, classrooms have a specific exception (USC title 17 chapter 1 § 110 (1)) which allows "performance or display of a work by instructors or pupils in the course of face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit educational institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction".

The issue at hand here is that textbook publishers can't (or won't) include the speech or even major excerpts of it. And although a teacher can buy the speech DVD and play it, it's not a very good support to study the speech.

> I wouldn't.

Neither would I. We studied the book of Ruth in an ancient literature course in high school, along with Gilgamesh, et al. It was very interesting to read them in that context.

The effect of religion is inseparable from the course of history. It's possible to approach it from a non-theistic context.

I did Study of Religion at a Catholic private school. We studied other religions (Buddhism, Islam, and I chose to spend a year studying The Salvation Army) in a non-theistic and academic context. It was mind expanding, and a major reason I am now an atheist.

I read and listened to the speech in both high school and middle school in Virginia, for what it's worth.

Even now, its so surprising to me that such a pivotal part of my nation's history is such a great piece of oratory. The entire thing is just so incredibly mellifluous.

    >> If schools really wanted to teach it, it would be well within fair use laws for them to show the whole thing.
    >
    > No, not a chance. Even a few paragraphs would likely get them smashed, especially if they're the most interesting of the speech.
    >

Actually we had to memorize a significant portion of the speech for my eighth grade AP English class, in addition to watching the speech, and talking about the context. This was part of a larger section on civil rights coordinated with our History lessons.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm fairly certain that educational programs are allowed to do whatever they want wrt. copyright as long as they can show educational value and aren't directly profiting off of reproducing the copyrighted work.

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

If that were true, there wouldn't be a market for textbooks.

Not necessarily. The material teachers distribute to classes come out of their budget (ink and paper aren't free). And the time taken to compile an entire course from scratch would not be insignificant.

The copyrighted works we were shown and given access to in class were supplements to the textbooks we were using.

> I'm not a lawyer, but I'm fairly certain that educational programs are allowed to do whatever they want wrt. copyright

You're wrong. Educational programs have a specific exemption for performing or displaying lawfully acquired copyrighted works in a classroom setting: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/110 but that's the extent of it, they most definitely are not allowed to reproduce copyrighted work whether profiting of it or not.

Pretty sure we read this in my senior english class in high school. (Under the general topic of persuasion/argument/rhetoric.)

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