An individual who has been on both sides, the law and crime, would more than clearly be able to tell between a criminal and a non-criminal based upon their actions. The law plays a great role in society, as it protects our rights and enforces punishments as a consequence of certain violations; moreover, a society without law would be total chaos. Ellen Goodman, a columnist for the Boston Globe, addresses the topic of copyrighting in Back to the lake (554-555). She offers her personal point of view, as she asks “who owns a dream” (554-555). In this case the dream was described by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963 where he shared it with a crowd of two hundred thousand people at the Lincoln memorial. Goodman introduces what seems to be the issue behind all the drama between Dr. King’s family and the public, as she states “Now people are wrangling over the value of that gift” (554-555). Today’s big question is “who owns Dr. Kings Words?” (554-555), as Goodman states in the title of her essay. Moreover, the family of Dr. King seems to be worried about his image as well as everything else, and who would judge them? I would not want the government to take over my father’s lifetime work and money, that is just not right, especially when Dr. King’s work is worth more than fifty million dollars. “Goodman has a good point,” as she states “It’s far too easy in our culture to slip from being a martyr on a pedestal to a pop icon on a T-shirt” (554-555). However, the public’s allegation is that Dr. King was a public figure and that his dream is not private, thus it belongs to the public. Dr. King himself copyrighted that dream after he shared it with the world, He said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” sounds like a personal dream rather than a dream for the public. Therefore, Dr. King’s dream belongs to him and his family and thanks to the benefits of copyright, his lifetime work along with its profit will remain property of the king’s family. Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford University is committed to what he calls “Free Culture” and shares his opinion about it in Back to the Lake (562-565). Lawrence understands the concept of copywriting which is a good thing; however, in his essay, he talks about intellectual property as a culture in which others can build upon and even thou he is correct, there should be certain limits. Lawrence argues that over time artists, scientists and others have used the work of others to build their own, as he states “scientists build upon the work of other scientist’s without asking for permission or paying for the privilege” (562-565) which is true; however there is a big difference betwe