Selling a Dream?

[sphinxpoet]

I was watching 60 minutes last night and they had a story about the Martin Luther King Jr. Family having exclusive rights to the Speeches and works of Martin Luther King Jr. The family is selling those rights to various companies to use in advertising and if a group or person is not contracted with the King Family they will be sued(CBS has been sues once before and USA today was sued a few years back for reprinting the "I Have a Dream Speech"). The family also wanted to sell all of Dr. King's Work to the Libary of Congress for 20 Million dollars. I personally think that is ok(Even though 98% of the libary's information is donated).

What do you all think of this:

My opinion is that if someone is going to make money off of Dr. King's Memory it should be his family.

my 06 Cents

Sphinxpoet

[Sugar_N_Spice]

I don't have a problem w/the family selling Dr. King's info to the Library of Congress, but I don't think they should sell it to various companies for advertising purposes...I would HATE to see some company using one of King's popular speeches as part of some commercial for a car or house, etc. I believe these things are sacred and should be kept that way...

[Ideal08]

If they sell it to the Library of Congress, will they still hold the rights to print it and all that? I don't know, I'm always skep about stuff like this. If it were me, I'd wouldn't want to sell it. But, $20mill is a hefty sum... I'd just be worried, about what, I don't know, but like I said, I'm skep about stuff like this. Some things should just stay in the family.

[AKAtude]

FYI...We have a thread about this in the AKA forum from a while ago if you want to read some more responses. I agree with Sugar N Spice.

[Six_Three_Sigma]

20 million is a hefty piece of cheddar. But, in my HUMBLE opinion, this stuff is worth a lot more than 20 million dollars.

Anyway, I don't think they should sell it to the library of congress. I really do not trust those people. As we all know, records have a way of disappearing when the government is involved. I know that this is not material which is important to national security or anything like that, but I just feel like the Kind family should hold on to material (and maybe license its use).

With the licensing, I would hope that the King family would strongly regulate how the image of this man is used. For example, there is a McDonald's commercial that comes on every year with MLK's picture in it during Black History month. Personally, I don't think his likeness should be used in a McDonalds commercial (I got issues with all of the fast food commercials running during "our" TV time anyway).

What's wrong with them licensing his image for use in a stay in school or get an education commercial. (I do not ever remember seeing one of these, but there may have been some done.)

This is just my opinion though.

Six_Three_Sigma

[The Original Ape]

I agree, Sphinxpoet.

His family is entitled to profit from his work. I'm sure they are aware of his national value; and because of it, I hope they take every consideration in their decision on to whom they sell/lease the rights to his work.