© 2008 Associated PressPhoto by John Bazemore
By Sandra Plasse
T-shirts and other merchandise depicting an image of King and Obama with slogans such as “The Dream Is Reality,” have become popular since the campaign and historical election of Barack Obama. The New York Times reported that Isaac Newton Farris, the head of the nonprofit King Center in Atlanta and Dr. Martin Luther King’s nephew, says the estate plans to sue merchants who continue to use his uncle’s symbols alongside Obama.
The King family is excited about Obama’s victory but wants to protect Dr. King’s name and estate, the article reports. However the estate doesn’t plan to sue merchants for about a month in order to allow vendors to stop selling the merchandise at their own discretion. Farris says he expects to license some merchandise in the future that will portray Obama and King together.
“King’s writings, likeness, and voice are considered intellectual property, and almost any use—from graduate thesis papers to TV documentaries—are subject to approval by his estate,” explains AP writer Errin Haines on newsvine.com.
Farris says the estate wants to maintain their rights over King's image. “If you don’t protect and assert a right to an image, you can lose the right to that image," says Farris. On Lawbeat, Professor Obbie acknowledged that the articles published neglect to inform the reader about how intellectual property rights work. Obbie suggests that future stories should answer the question— “Could the King Center look the other way and not undercut its future IP (intellectual property) rights?”
Critics suggest that the estate is too overprotective of King’s legacy, and that it will be extremely hard to stop all unlicensed production of the images. However, Farris says that the estate must protect its rights as well as its entitlement to a percent of the profit. “We do feel that if somebody’s out there making a dollar, we should make a dime.”
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