Today is Martin Luther King day and millions of people around the world draw inspiration from his famous words. The words of Dr. King are not currently in the public domain, and if a person wanted to publicly recite Dr. King’s words they would need to have permission from the King Center. Even though MLK was a public figure, he was not an elected one so his works are not in the public domain in the same way that the speeches of John F. Kennedy and Teddy Roosevelt would be. This column takes a strong position on the issue of MLK’s speeches not being in the public domain. Millions of people around the world have been influenced by the late civil rights leader and they draw a tremendous amount of inspiration from his struggle for racial equality.
See Ronnie Polaneczky, The price of MLK’s words, Philadelphia Media Network, January 17, 2016.
Special thanks to Brian Cohan (Attorney at Law, Law Offices of Brian J. Cohan, P.C.) for bringing this article to my attention.
