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 21Copyright © Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963, 1964
Introduction copyright © Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., 2000
All rights reservedPrinted 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.