MARKETING: Rhetoric On Reels

Less than a week passed after Jesse Jackson's speech at the Democratic National Convention before entrepreneurs began to profit from his stirring words. MPI Home Video of Oak Forest, Ill., bought film footage of the address from a subsidiary of ABC-TV and produced a 60-minute home video titled Jesse Jackson: We Can Dream Again. The $14.95 tape was an instant success, pulling in 31,000 mail and telephone orders from around the U.S.

But Jackson's lawyers moved quickly to push the stop button on the video venture. Claiming the speech was copyrighted, they sued in federal court, charging MPI with exploiting Jackson's "name, stature and literary, oratorical and creative skills." U.S. District Judge James Zagel issued a temporary restraining order halting distribution of the video until he issues a ruling, which is expected this week. Lawyers for MPI, which has marketed videotaped speeches by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and Winston Churchill, argued that the company's right to sell the Jackson tape is protected by the First Amendment. Said MPI Spokesman Jaffer Ali: "We're fighting for the rights of independent companies to put out news events."