## Facts

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, before a large crowd, with live television and radio broadcast.
- An advance text of the speech was made available in a press area at the event; it bore no copyright notice, and the parties disputed whether access and use were restricted to press and limited purposes.
- The speech was later reprinted in full in a September 1963 SCLC newsletter without a copyright notice or stated restrictions; the record left disputes about the scope and character of that distribution.
- On September 30, 1963, Dr. King applied for federal copyright registration for the speech; a certificate issued October 2, 1963.
- In 1994, CBS produced a documentary episode about the March on Washington that used CBS’s 1963 footage, including extensive footage of the speech, without licensing from the Estate.
- The Estate sued CBS for copyright infringement in federal district court.

## Issues

1. Whether Dr. King’s public delivery and broadcast of the speech constituted a “general publication” of the speech text under the Copyright Act of 1909, thereby forfeiting common-law protection and placing the work in the public domain absent statutory formalities.
2. Whether distribution of the advance text to the press and republication in the SCLC newsletter amounted to a general publication, or instead a limited publication preserving common-law rights.
3. Whether CBS was entitled to summary judgment that the speech entered the public domain before federal registration.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgment for CBS and remanded.
- The court held that public delivery of the speech, even with broad broadcast dissemination, was a public performance and did not by itself constitute a general publication of the speech text.
- The court concluded that distribution of the advance text to the press was, at most, a limited publication for a limited purpose and did not divest common-law copyright.
- The court held that factual disputes concerning the SCLC newsletter distribution and related circumstances precluded summary judgment that the speech had entered the public domain before registration.

## Legal Principles

- Under the 1909 Act, a work retained common-law copyright until a general publication; a general publication could dedicate the work to the public, and publication without required notice could result in public-domain status.
- A general publication is a disclosure that justifies treating the work as dedicated to the public; a limited publication communicates the work to a selected group for a limited purpose without authorizing further diffusion.
- Public performance of a work, regardless of the size of the audience or breadth of broadcast, is distinct from publication of the work’s text and does not alone constitute a general publication.
- Supplying a text to the press to facilitate news coverage, without conferring rights of reproduction and sale to the public, is a classic form of limited publication.
- When the character and scope of dissemination are disputed, general-publication determinations under the 1909 Act are fact-dependent and may be inappropriate for summary judgment.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit held that the speech’s public delivery and broadcast did not, as a matter of law, amount to a general publication of the text, and that the press distribution and newsletter republication raised factual questions; therefore, CBS was not entitled to summary judgment that the speech entered the public domain before Dr. King’s federal registration.


Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc., 194 F.3d 1211 (11th Cir. 1999)