Is this speech actually in the public domain? Wasn't there a legal dispute over the question of the copyright status of this speech, and if so, who knows for sure what the current status is?

I know for sure, and I know for sure that it is not only under copyright but also that his heirs are vicious about protecting it. Deleted.

Thats a shame. I guess there are some places freedom just won't ring... GWO

In King vs. CBS, the district court ruled that the speech was in the public domain, because King's speech (and his prior dissemination of it to the press) was a "general publication without notice", which, under the then-existing 1909 copyright act, placed the work in the public domain (today, no notice is required for copyright). King's estate appealed, and the circuit court reversed and remanded, finding the trial court's order of summary judgment invalid, but not specificially ruling on the validity of the copyright claim. King's estate and CBS reached a settlement that granted CBS the right to use the speech in certain ways in exchange for CBS donating to the King Center for Non-violent Social Change, and so this particular case will not be taken to final judgment, leaviing the issue up in the air. King's estate is pretty liberal about permission to reproduce the speech, so there are places on the net to which we can point for the full text. But we cannot put the actual text here, because even if the King family allowed us to display it, they would not allow us to re-license it under the GFDL, which is required for use here. --LDC

Epopt describes the case this way:

In early November, 1999 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled in Estate of Martin Luther King v. CBS that King's heirs have exclusive rights to his speeches. Rev. King applied for statutory copyright in his speech one month after the march, and his family renewed the copyright in 1991, and has been vigilantly guarding against the unauthorized use of King's speeches. Intellectual Property Management, Inc., representing King's estate, says licensing fees for the use of the famous speech start at $2,000. The estate has granted free permission to some nonprofit, charitable organizations and schools.

However, in 1992, Harry Hampton, producer of the acclaimed television documentary "Eyes on the Prize" paid "less than $100,000" to settle a suit brought by King's widow Coretta Scott King and their four children. In 1993, they sued USA Today for reprinting "I Have a Dream" to mark the 30th anniversary of the march in Washington, D.C. The paper settled out of court for the $1,700 license fee and legal costs. In 1994, CBS produced a documentary series entitled "The 20th Century with Mike Wallace," which included Rev. King's speech. In 1998, the estate sued CBS for copyright infringement.

CBS argued that the licensing scheme is invalid because the speech was in the public domain. CBS stressed that King delivered his speech in front of 200,000 people in Washington, D.C., that the organizers of the march sought broad media coverage, that many newspapers reprinted the speech, and that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference made it available to its members in the group's newsletter.

However, the court concluded that, despite its initial wide dissemination, the speech did not pass into the public domain. King's performance constituted only "limited publication" of the speech because it was distributed mainly to the media, and not to the general public at large. Under common law of copyright, a limited publication does not divest an author of his exclusive rights in the work.

(Decision on File, Estate of Martin Luther King v. CBS, No. 98-9079, Nov. 5, 1999.)

Some combination of your description and my description of the case probably should be on the main page, but let's discuss details a bit. For one, it is important to note that the circuit court did not rule that the work was under copyright. It ruled only that the district court's summary judgment that the work was in the public domain was unjustified, that there were material facts in controversy, and that therefore the case was remanded to the district court for trial. No trial took place because CBS settled. --LDC

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The "I have a Dream" speech is available on Project Gutenberg. They have this to say about the copyright issue:

"This speech has been through years of court cases to determine, in various jurisdictions, whether it was ever copyrighted, and the United States court system recently laid down their rulings that this speech had never been copyrighted, since at that time it was required to post a copyright notice on printed copies to be distributed, and this speech was distributed without such an extra (C) Copyright notice as was then required in the US. The US revised this law in 1989, an no longer requires such notice."

While Wikipedia may not want to get into the whole debate, perhaps a link to the Gutenberg site would be a good compromise? -- April

I removed the boldface around the copyright discussion. Since the full text is linked (thanks to Gutenberg) I don't think anyone else will try to add it in here. :) -- April