Questions about copyright of the deceased

I recently acquired a fairly recent printing of Why We Can’t Wait by Martin Luther King Junior. Now, I assumed that the copyright of the book would have passed to either his children, or some foundation. However, feeling curious I decided to check.

Following is the copyright page at the beginning of the book. I’ve collapsed some sections that are not relevant to my question into [...]. Emphasis mine.

+SIGNET CLASSICS
+Published by New American Library, [...]
+
Penguin Books, Ltd., [...]
+
Published by Signet Classics, [...]
+
First Signet Classics Printing, January 2000
+30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21
+
Copyright © Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963, 1964
+Introduction copyright © Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., 2000
+All rights reserved
+
Printed in the United States of America
+
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this
+publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced int a retrieval system,
+or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photo-
+copying, recording, or otherwise), without prior written permission of both
+the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
+
If you purchased this book without a cover [...]
+
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet of via
+any other means without permission of the publisher is illegal and punish-
+able by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not
+participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your sup-
+port of the author’s rights is appreciated. +

(To those who will comment on it, my posting of the above text is firmly within fair use.)

So, my questions are:

Is MLK still the copyright holder? Yes: Getting his permission is a little hard. No: Whose permission do I need?
Is distribution without permission of the publisher really illegal? What legal stake do they have to the text of the book? Isn’t it really the copyright holder’s permission I need? (for the text anyway, I’m not concerned about things like typesetting and cover art).
I find it humorous that they end their plea for me to not pirate the book with a thank you for supporting MLK’s rights. Because he totally appreciates his copyright to draw a profit from the book right now. Because he’s more concerned about other not making copies of the book than spreading the message, especially now that he’s dead, and can’t draw a profit from it anyway.

+ +

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Questions about copyright of the deceased

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