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Font Company Wielding DMCA Against Bit-Flipping
Roundeye writes: "Seems that AGFA Monotype is trying to stop Tom Murphy from distributing his embed tool. According to the lawyers, the pair of bits in a TrueType font which specify how a font should be embedded constitute a DMCA-worthy access control device. Tom's standing up to them because, 'Embedding bits do nothing to keep consumers from copying fonts' and 'Since the enactment of the DMCA, I have only ever run embed on fonts for which I own the copyright." He's even got his own haiku version of the software..."
Go to court and try to win this one. This case is even more riduculous than the others, and if it goes to court there is a good chance that it might get the DMCA struck down. Then of course it might just get thrown out because he isn't really violating the DMCA. But either way he shouldn't back down from it.
Mess Stuff Up
Soon any "undefined/future use" bits on a devices will be retroactively defined as access/copyright control and used as an excuse to sue thru DMCA.
Sad.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Maybe next Microsoft will say that any OS that users a username/password scheme for security is infringing upon their copyrighted access control schemes and thus violating the law too?
When will the madness end? It is good to see people like Tom standing up to the man.
Gee, I hope I didn't give Billie Boy Gates any ideas here.
The very sucky part about this thing is that fonts aren't exactly the kind of thing you see in warez groups. The people who do use Embed (and I have) are the ones who really need it for their work, in my case it's creating electronic documents (PDF or Corel Envoy) to send off to whomever needs this or that report within the organisation.
If the font doesn't follow the document, you can sure bet that important CEO-type dude will see a bunch of disproportioned junk because the tech people haven't touched his workstation since 1995. "Ooh look! I'm an evil font-embedding whore!"
The big piss about this case is that the only people who understand the issue, aren't going to be the ones making the legal decisions (as usual).
-Billco, Fnarg.com
create you own fonts and you cannot do what you want with them.. amazing how far the DMCA is being taken. This I am sure has a lot of ramifications with things like ebooks and all the ebook readers as well, I wonder if they are in violation of the DMCA and are next in line for a nice sjuicy lawsuit. Guess I better pop some popcorn and stay tuned..
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
Say goodbye to saving your work in the middle and coming back to it. Say goodbye, potentially, to backup software, since adding registry keys post-installation may be involved in copy control, and backup software would bypass that. Say goodbye to...well...computers. (Not that this hasn't been said before elsewhere, but...)
This flies in the face of science.
It would be kind of fun to mirror Tom's program and source all over the web just to mess with these idiots who are trying to stop him. I wonder if he would mind.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Is with the CDA, the entire law was not thrown out, just the parts that were questioned and found unconstitutional.
For any real effect, the trial court ruling has to be reviewed by an appeals court.
Fight Spammers!
Non-Parity memory outlawed due to the risk of alpha particles bit flipping true-type fonts!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
This raises a great point about the DCMA. If I have a company that produces a tool to help me create products I am ok. Now, if my tool is used by others to circumvent what they call protection am I liable?
2 .h tm
In this case preventing someone from embedding a font doesn't protect the font. The font can easily be included with the document. This is nuts.
The embedding bits were orginally designed to make things easier for people to *distribute* fonts, not impede the distribution.
Check out this from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/embed/embed
The best quote:
"Most foundries and type designers set the embedding level of their fonts to Editable embedding allowed or Print & Preview embedding allowed. However, a few foundries set the embedding level to No embedding allowed. If you feel that embedding technology has a place within your organization, be sure to ask the type vendor about it before you part with any money."
a hex editor.
This poster's name secretly replaced with Folgers Crystals
There's 1 bit in the font that says "please don't allow anyone to copy me?"
Dumb.
They have a web form you can fil out here:
AGFA's Web form.
When they get bombarded with emails, they'll know that they're under the public eye. If this goes to court, I may be willing to donate a few dollars to assist ith legal fees.
"Derp de derp."
I woudl have had nothing to read today except an interview with somone from sun.. yay. seriously look at the front page. its kind of scary to have so many stories taking away the rights of people. only in america.
-
Tom,
Love your responses. Its amazing the the lawyers don't even seem to reading your notes before they respond.
You didn't start this fight, but be sure you finish it......
Here is the right link.
Agfa Monotype, per their own Web site, came about in 1998 when "Monotype® Typography [was] acquired by Agfa Corporation in 1998...". You wrote embed in 1997. So sue them.
Maybe writing computer programs in C and compiling them on a computer is illegal. It allows you to circumvent those bits which control copy protection! Pesky programmers...
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
because cd's already have a 'copy bit'
From: All about subcode
The third bit is used for a sort of copy protection. If the bit is set, it tells a digital recorder listening to the data not to record. This is why a DAT wont record all of your CD's so you can take them back and not have to pay for them. Record companies thought about this in advance...
wouldn't a 'statute of limitations' type thing apply in this case? Embed was published in 1997. The DMCA passed into law in 1998. Wouldn't any copy-protecion-circumvention program written and published before 1998 still be legal?
Way to go! It is vital to stand up to this. Agfa has already spent more on Lawyers than the defense ever will. I wish he would post email adresses to the law firm that emailed them. I would like to say some things to them.
For those who haven't read the article, and think that the author of the program has made some complex circumvention device, here's a haiku description of the program from the author's webpage:
The OS/2 chunk
has a bit for embedding.
Set it to zero.
Grr! Arg!
And I must say, they do have a case.
The DMCA was designed to give "The Monotype Corporation, International Typeface Corporation, and Agfa Monotype Corporation" the right to sue over this.
It's sad, and complete BS, but they do have a case. The tool was written to assist font designers create free fonts, but it also, purely accidentally, violates the DMCA.
I really am interested to see what happens in this case because it's a perfect example of what happens when you give unmoderated power to an entity with no morals whatsoever (a corporation).
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
Anyway, in case you're curious, I've been pushing their buttons a little bit, with the help of Dave Touretzky , and my current guess is that they have given up on me. (I haven't heard back since the letter I sent them that's on that page.) But I will be happy to go to court over this retarded case, and the EFF has informally offered to help if I do. ( Donate! )
In case you're interested, my fonts, which I've been making since 1993 (and which are free for you to use for practically anything) are at fonts.tom7.com .
Oh For Fuck's Sake.
What about hex-editors then?
What about sed? I'll be you could come up with a nifty program to twiddle some bits in the same manner.
And for those lawyers, I've got a couple of bits they can twiddle; my balls.
I hope Tom wins.
Humorless sig goes here.
2. Non-embeddable fonts will prevent you from creating a PDF file that is portable and will display correctly, if you're using Adobe software (Acrobat Distiller). This program can fix the problem. (hmm. Significant noninfringing use?)
3. There's a lot of free fonts out there that, through accident or omission, have the "don't embed" bits set. So there's a significant number of fonts where the author did not intend to limit the ability to distribute the font, yet these stupid bits (more correctly, stupid font-creation software that turns them on by default) are interfering with use of fonts as intended.
314-15-9265
Is this case to go to court, and the defendent to walk up and write on a whiteboard three things:
Complete intricate instructions in english on how to flip the copyprotection bit off using a hex editor and some notebook paper to do the binary calculations on;
The same text, only in italian;
And source code to a quick C program which flips the bit for you.
Then tell the judge, "these three things all do the same thing. the first two, you would say are protected by freedom of speech. the third one, the plaintiff is trying to say is not protected by freedom of speech. But i say all three are speech, and I understand all three, and if you'll notice, the third one is considerably shorter than the other two, so if i wanted to explain to someone who knows english, italian, and C how to do the thing these three blocks of text describe, i would use C since it is the most convenient.
Does the fact that you don't understand C++ mean that things written in the C++ language are not constitutionally protected speech? Does the fact that you don't understand italian mean that things written in the italian language are not constitutionally protected speech?"
--Super Ugly Ultraman
Tom wrote "embed" in 1997, as stated in his emails. DMCA went into the books in 1998. So he wrote the program before the law even existed... How can you break a law before it's a law?
This guy has some really good points, this just appears to be another case of a corporation using the vaguely worded DMCA to try and push someone around. How's that saying go? "If you can't make a good product, sue someone that has"?
Everytime we see an example of the little guy getting threatened by the Big Evil, we Slashdotters have an orgy of analysis and in the end do absolutely nothing. Appeals to donate to the EFF are roundly issued but how many bother?
What Slashdot needs to do is have a Fund set up - basically, an Amazon click-to-pay or PayPal (or both) account setup on the front page. It shoudl be preset for $1 donations. Every time we have a YRO post on slashdot frontpage, the donate buttons shoudl be inserted into the comments page.
The idea is, make it EASY to donate, makie it quick, make the links impossible to miss and always appear in correct context. If I had such a link infront of me right now I'd click it.
Every time we see a case like this, we set up a fund and channel funds to the poor guy. And maybe Slashdot could channel a matching percentage to the EFF as a donation from teh advertising revenue.
There has to be a way to leverage the huge community numbers here into actual tangible pressure - and money is the best way.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
The lawyers went on to say: "By reading this notice you have looked upon copyrighted fonts. Take this rusty spoon, and with it gouge out your eyes, as they are a circumvention device. They have made unauthorized copies of our fonts in order to embed the font with other information to be sent to the brain."
- I love animals. I try to eat at least one a day.
embed: DMCA threats
I wrote embed in 1997, after discovering that all of my fonts disallowed embedding in documents. Since my fonts are free, this was silly -- but I didn't want to take the time to open up each one in Fontographer, change the flag, and then reset all of the extended font properties with a separate program. What a bore! Instead, I wrote this program to convert all of my fonts at once. The program is very simple; it just requires setting a few bits to zero. Indeed, I noticed that other fonts that were licensed for unlimited distribution also disallowed embedding (this is Fontographer's default, after all). So, I put this program on the web in hopes that it would help other font developers as well.
That was five years ago. Of course, I left the program up because I believe it may be of continued interest to free font developers. Then one day...
Date: 30 Jan 2002
From: Paul Stack
To: Tom 7
Subject: Font Embedding
Dear Mr. Murphy. I represent Agfa Monotype Corporation and International Typeface Corporation. The program you are distributing on your website which allows a person to change the embedding restrictions on a font has been brought to my attention.
The distribution of this program, whether for free or for a fee, infringes my client's federal copyrights in their TrueType programs. This infringement carries the storng possibility of very substantial statutory damages, the imposition of a federal injunction, and an award of attorneys' fees. Demand is made upon to you to immediately remove this program from your website and to contact me so that we can discuss remaining issues between you and my clients.
Very truly yours,
Paul F. Stack
Stack & Filpi Chtd.
...
Chicago, IL
Date: 30 Jan 2002
From: Tom 7
To: Paul F. Stack
Subject: re: Font embedding
> The distribution of this program, whether for free or for a fee,
> infringes my client's federal copyrights in their TrueType programs.
My web page contains none of your clients' copyrighted material. In order for me to take this message seriously, I think you should explain how precisely I am violating your clients' copyrights.
I hope you address the fact that I have a legitimate use for this program, namely the modification of the dozens of typefaces that I created.
Thanks,
Tom
[ Tom 7 : http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~twm/ ]
[ Tom 7 : http://fonts.tom7.com/ ]
Months pass. Now, another letter with a stronger tone (but just as vague)...
Date: 17 April 2002
From: Paul F. Stack
To: Tom 7
Cc: Steve Kuhlman (VP Sales & Marketing, Agfa Monotype), Lawyers
Subject: Cease and Desist Letter
This office represents The Monotype Corporation and International Typeface Corporation. I have previously written to you about the computer software program which you are offering from the web site owned and operated by Carnegie Mellon University which allows a party to alter the embedding bits preset on TrueType fonts by many font manufacturers, including my clients. I have informed you that your conduct violates the copyright law. I have discovered today that you are still offering this program. Demand is made upon you to immediately cease and desist your unlawful conduct. If you are still offering your program by 5 pm, Central Daylight Time, on April 18, 2002, we will take such action against both you and Carnegie Mellon University as we deem appropriate without further notice to you.
Paul F. Stack
Stack & Filpi Chtd.
...
Chicago, IL
Date: 18 April 2002
From: Tom 7
To: Lawyers, Steve Kuhlman (VP Sales & Marketing, Agfa Monotype)
Subject: Re: Cease and Desist Letter
I have no reason to believe that I am violating your client's copyright. I feel strongly about free speech issues, and it upsets me to be bullied by lawyers -- not to mention the fact that I and others use this program in the totally legal process of creating free fonts. Therefore, I do not intend to remove the program unless you provide convincing arguments that I am breaking the law, or unless ordered to do so by the court. (And if you intend to take me to court, you might as well begin developing legal arguments now.)
Please do not e-mail me again unless you intend to explain specifically how I am violating Monotype/ITC copyright.
(Steve, do you really want to sue a student designer and a university? Trying to sue a program out of existence usually only causes it to become more popular (cf. DeCSS) on the internet. Several of my colleagues, including faculty members, have already volunteered to host the program on their websites in order to help. I also imagine that suing a popular* free font designer will not be such good publicity for Agfa Monotype or ITC among the community of young designers!)
- Tom
PS. I have forwarded your letter to chillingeffects.org, an Electronic Freedom Foundation clearing house for Cease and Desist letters.
* Search google for "truetype fonts", and notice that my page is ranked 4th and 9th; your sites *pay* for the privilege to be listed on the first page!
Date: 22 April 2002
From: Paul F. Stack
To: Tom 7
Subject: "Embed"
Mr. Murphy. You have asked for an explanation of the law regarding your program "embed." A memorandum is attached. I will check tomorrow to confirm that your program has been removed.
(attached memo converted from WORD format)
You have requested further information regarding the basis for our clients' cease and desist demand. The computer software program that you are offering on your website, identified as "embed," violates copyright law. Section 1201(a) of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), effective October 28, 2000, states, in part, "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." A technological measure "effectively controls access to a work" if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work. One "circumvents a technological measure" when he uses any means to descramble a work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise, to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner.
Our clients, The Monotype Corporation, International Typeface Corporation, and Agfa Monotype Corporation own copyrights in numerous computer programs that generate digital typeface fonts. They, along with many other type designers, invest large amounts of time and energy in creating digitized typeface designs ("fonts"). They earn money by licensing copies of these fonts to third parties under end-user license agreements.
TrueType fonts have embedding "bits" which allow the creator of the font to decide the level of embedding that will be permitted. There are four different embedding bits: (1) no embedding, (2) embedding for view and print only, (3) embedding for view, print and editing, and (4) installable embedding.. Many small type design houses have set their embedding bits so that embedding of any kind is not permitted. Monotype and ITC allow end users to transmit embedded fonts for print and preview only, but do not permit editable embedding. Editable embedding and installable embedding, as you know, permits a person to transmit a copy of a font to another party simply by using it in a document and transmitting the document over the Internet or by copying on a floppy disk. The party receiving the font thereafter has a complete, useable copy of the font. An embedding bit is a "technological measure" that "effectively controls access" to their copyrighted works under the DMCA.
"Embed" is a software program that enables the end user to remove the embedding bits preset by type designers and type foundries. By using "embed," an end user can change the preset embedding bits on a copyrighted font from restricted, print and preview, or editable embedding to installable embedding. By circumventing the preset embedding bits, "embed" circumvents a technological measure set by the copyright owners on their copyrighted data. Use of "embed" on a copyrighted font is a clear violation of the DMCA.
You previously received notice that your software program violates my clients' copyrights. Continued distribution of "embed" is an intentional violation of the DMCA, and subjects you to actual or statutory damages. Statutory damages allow a recovery between $200 and $2,500 per act of circumvention, along with attorneys fees, costs and other items of damages. We also have a right to seek an injunction against you to prohibit you from violating our clients' rights. Demand is again made upon you to cease and desist the distribution of your program.
Dated: April 22, 2002
Date: 25 Apr 2002
From: Tom 7
To: Paul F. Stack
Subject: re: "Embed"
I have reviewed your claims and have concluded that they are not applicable, and that Embed does not violate your clients' copyrights. My reasoning is included below.
1. Background
The TrueType format is a public specification developed by Apple Computer and Microsoft Corporation. Anyone can write programs that manipulate or create TrueType fonts. There are dozens of TrueType utilities being published and thousands of free fonts created by designers available on the internet. Copyrights for these fonts are held by a diverse set of authors, including commercial font foundries, "shareware" font authors, and hobbyists.
I (Tom Murphy), the author of more than sixty TrueType fonts, developed a program called "embed" in 1997 to set the embedding bits on fonts that I developed. I released this program into the public domain as a service to the community of TrueType developers.
Embedding bits do nothing to keep consumers from copying fonts. It is trivial to copy the font file wholesale onto a floppy disk or as an e-mail attachment along with a document that uses it.
Furthermore, most applications do not permanently install embedded fonts on the recipient's machine, regardless of the state of the embedding flag. This presents another practical obstacle to using Embed for font piracy.
Following are specific objections to the claims by Monotype/ITC.
2. Embedding bits are not a "technological measure that effectively control access to a work" under 17 U.S.C.
A. Embedding bits do not fit the definition in 1201(a)(3)(B).
Embedding bits do not require the application of information, process, or treatment in order to gain access to the work. Fonts are fully usable, and copyable, regardless of the status of the embedding bits.
Embedding bits suggest to *other programs* that the font may not be embedded. They do not control access to the work.
Because the TrueType specification is a published file format, anyone can make use of the format and write programs that manipulate font data. I have the same author's rights as Monotype to make use of the documented features of that specification.
3. Embed is not a "circumvention device" as defined under 17 U.S.C.
A. Embed is exempt under 1201(a)(2)(B), because it has substantial commercially significant use other than circumvention. In particular, it is used by font designers (including the author) to set the embedding bits on font files for which they own the copyright. This is not "circumvention" (1201(a)(3)(A)) because it is done with the authority of the copyright holder.
B. Embed is not "primarily designed or produced" for the purpose of circumvention. Rather, it was designed for font designers to set the embedding bits on font files for which they own the copyright.
4. Embed has substantial non-infringing use
A. Because Embed has substantial non-infringing uses (see above paragraph), it is outside the reach of 1201(a)(2). See Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984).
5. No circumvention has taken place
A. Claims under 1201(a)(1)(A) are entirely baseless, as no circumvention has taken place.
Since the enactment of the DMCA, I have only ever run embed on fonts for which I own the copyright. Agfa Monotype/ITC have not provided any evidence to the contrary.
6. DMCA additions to 17 U.S.C. are unconstitutional
A. Attempting to use the DMCA to restrict dissemination of a computer program is prohibited by the First Amendment, because computer code is protected speech.
I trust that this clears up the issues between me and your clients.
Tom
In a case like this, where there are only a few bits to "adjust" to achieve desired results, anyone with a little knowhow could just use a hex editor.
Of course hex editors have "substantial commercially significant use other than circumvention", but lawyers don't seem to care...
-... ---
...the concept of using usernames and passwords for comuter security and the stupid numbnuts at the USPTO granted them the patent in complete disregard to the preponderance of prior art that exists in regard to this.
Here is another one (three):
Essence
Throughout these ages
our operating systems
infested by bugs
The ignorant world
turns to Windows for safety
Safety from themselves
It is now the time
for the world to realize
that we all feel pain
You obviously don't work in the design field do you?
Fonts aren't "freely distributed" in most cases. Fonts usually do accompany a piece sent to the printer to ensure the printer can reproduce the typeface in the design. But the printer must remove the fonts from their system if they do not have rights to them. Fonts you see in print are nearly always copyrighted due to the demanding nature of making a good, legible and proper typeface.
Check out this book.
Greedy lawyers sue
judge considers fair use death
rights flush down toilet
The threat from their lawyers is a bit on the false side. It looks like their complaint is centered on 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1) which has nothing to do with making a tool available. If you were posting hacked versions of their fonts or admitting to changing the "protection" bits on their fonts they would have the start of a case. Fortunatly, your tool doesn't even seem to fall into the "primarily designed" to circumvent a protection measure on a controlled work requirement of 1201(a)(2). If it goes to court, somebody needs a kick.
Notice that this is one font company suing another font company (even if he is just one guy) for releasing a tool to enable other users to produce fonts. That you can fiddle with someone else's property is just a side effect of the tool capabilities, in the same way that a VCR can be used to edit your own stuff, or to create the next Phantom Edit.
I'd call this use of the DMCA anti-competitive, and just plain rude to boot.
Judging by the last letter, it appears that Mr. Murphy has just done all the work that AFGAss' lawyers should have done in the first place. Maybe next time Tom should send along an invoice, say, for legal research at the rate of $200/hr or whatever lawyers charge nowadays.
If you don't believe me, ask that guy over there.
From this day forward I will not use fonts anymore!!!
I Heart Sorting Networks
As computer "intelligence" increases, and the line between artificial and biological "hardware" becomes thinner, this will actually become an issue.
I was thinking about this before because it seems that human language is very "GPL-ish". People can modify it at will, and generally make available their modifications. And much like a GPL-ed compiler or image editor, the results (poems, books) can still be licensed in a different manner.
I guess Microsoft should stop using open source language, and instead use a proprietary one they create themselves.
-... ---
I think AGFA has a pretty good case based on copyright here. Unlike a word processor, say, which has a plethora of uses w/ some of them as illegal, the only reason this program exists is to skirt copyright by altering the fonts.
So what if he started this tool because some of his free fonts disallowed embedding? Would we side with someone who ignored the GPL because it was preventing a free piece of code from being embedded into another program?
Same thing...
Did you read my response?
In order for embed to be covered by the DMCA, the program has to be primarily designed for circumvention. Circumvention only occurs when the act is without the authority of the copyright holder. In this case, I am the copyright holder, so of course I grant myself authority to modify the bits!
(There are several other reasons why their argument doesn't hold that I give, but this is the strongest...) I think their legal argument is faulty.
Check what IP the lawyer uses.
:-)
Use a Apache rewrite rule to serve up a version of the web page without the link to the program, for the lawyer's subnet.
Solved.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Does anyone have the email address for
Mr. Paul F. Stack
Stack & Filpi Chtd.
of Chicago, IL handy?
so I could understand the whole Greed, Fear and Intimidation thing.
Never disturb your enemy while he is busy making a mistake.
Probably not. A device has to be primarily designed for the purpose of circumvention, or marketed for circumvention.
Most importantly, though, "circumvention" only occurs if it is done without the authority of the copyright holder. If a format is open, and therefore many people (including the author of the program, perhaps) have reason to modify their works with the program, they of course have authority -- so it would be hard to argue that the device is designed "primarily" for circumvention. That's my main argument for this Embed thing.
Perhaps that is the real downfall of the DMCA...?
Contribute to the EFF
Write the Politions
If a decent percent of the hundreds of thousands of people who read slashdot acutally did these things, we might actually make a different.
subject says it all
Lasers Controlled Games!
Contribute to the EFF [eff.org]
Write the Politicians [congress.org]
If a decent percent of the hundreds of thousands of people who read slashdot acutally did these things, we might actually make a difference.
First, what if someone designs a web page that is best viewed with their font? Does the font company have the right to regulate the distribution of that webpage simply because the majority of the users have not payed for that font?
Second, what if someone downloads the font and uses it to print out copies of a novel they wrote? Would this font company have the right to restrict the reselling of this novel simply because some of their artwork had been used in its creation?
Um... yes. This really ought to be obvious.
The font company has as much right to restrict distribution of their fonts as an artist has to restrict distribution of copies of a work of art. It is illegal to distribute someone elses work without their permission.
You lost me, Sparky. How does this tool help people break anyone's copyright? Does it help font warez monkey copy font files to floppy disks, zip files, Usenet posts, or any other form of distribution? No. It does not. It simply allows people to embed fonts in a PDF file, which stay local to that PDF file.
.DPF files to warez fonts?
How many people use
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
What do you find in every circumvetion device?
Well some circumvention devices contain the following:
1. A data tranfer medium: wires, space, fiber-optics
2. Data: electrons, photons, magnetized particles.
3. Algorithms: hardware, software, or just ideas.
4. A container: metal housing, zip file meta-data.
Basically what we see here (if we simplify), is that a circumvention device will contain "stuff". So all we need to do is ban all "stuff" as well as any talk of "stuff", and we'll all be safe.
-... ---
I like your happy license :-)
Guns were not created as an advanced tin can hole making device that also could be used by bad people to kill people, and thus should be legal.
simple
Use this argument against anyone who is for the DMCA, and who likes guns. Say that the law is obviously wrong, and it is a persons right to wield a gun under the 1st amendment (IIRC) - hence it should be legal to write any kind of software and for it to be protected as well.
For each bit in x,
Flip y's identical bit
Where x's bit is one.
If he wins, the legal precedent could be : "If the algorythm is simple enough to express as a haiku, it is protected speech and not a computer process."
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
Appears to be what your're getting at. And it seems that they can...
l
http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj15n2-3-4.htm
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast.
EEEHHHH if i go to programmer's Heaven.com, then READ the True type File description, Wont I be aware of the position of the "protection" bit?
DUH !!!
so..... hex editors are illegal??? WTF?
Here's an interesting tidbit. .)
As it turns out, fonts cannot be copyrighted in the US. Only the truetype "programs" that generate them can. (See comp.fonts FAQ
Therefore, it would almost certainly be legal to write a program that takes copyrighted truetype "programs" as input, and produces equivalent programs (that is, they generate the same typeface) that are not copyrighted. It would also need to change the names to avoid trademark infringement. If I did this, and also changed the embedding bit, would that not put me in the clear of any possible DMCA claim?
I recommend writing the following persons to voice your complete disgust at AGFA Monotype for their lawyers using such tactics against Mr. Tom Murphy.
e .com
e .com
Robert Givens
President of Agfa Monotype
robert.givens@agfamonotype.com
Ira Mirochnick
Senior Vice-President
ira.mirochnick@agfamonotype.com
Steve Kuhlman
VP Sales & Marketing
steve.kuhlman@agfamonotype.com
Mark Larson
Marketing and Public Relations
Agfa Monotype Corporation
985 Busse Road
Elk Grove, IL 60007-2400
847-718-0400
mark.larson@agfamonotyp
Vikki Quick
OEM Product Marketing Manager
Agfa Monotype Corporation
200 Ballardvale Street
Wilmington, MA 01887-1069
978.284.5926
vikki.quick@agfamonotyp
Since it is used to unhide 'hidden' files?
Hmm. I thought it was a 2 bit system. (no pun intended)
one bit for copyright, one for original.
If copyright & original is set, making a copy is okay. THe cdopy should have original turned off and copyright should stay in whatever state it was on before.
If copyright is on and original is off, copying shoudl be denied.
I was under the (perhaps flawed) assumption that one couldn't copyright a font, but could copyright the name, which is why pc's and mac's and other systems all have basically identical fonts with totally different names.
Also, if when you purchase a font, you can produce printed works with it, whats to say you can't embed it in webpages. Fonts afterall are designed for presentation, otherwise why would people pay for them in the first place. Whats it matter wether the presentation is in print on the web instead of in a magazine.
It just means, according to what I know, that you can't be charged with violating the law, because it wasn't a law when you did what you did.
Now continueing to do said act after the law was passed would be illegal.
But, IANAL.
EFGearman
Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!
Is there some way that we can set up a fund to help him defend himself? This seems like a case that will make or break the DCMA and he seems to have a good chance of winning. What's say we figure out how to donate money or legal services to him to make sure that he makes it?
Nope, its still illegal. Creating the software is not illigal, but once the law was passed (according to the complaintant) the software now violates the law and becomes illegal. So as long as he stops distributing/using the software after it has been deemed illegal, he is doing nothing wrong.
If Tom wants to make his fonts freely available to others, and uses his software to toggle bits on his fonts, fine.
But, it clear from comments here that at least some people are using the program to illegally embeed fonts in documents, such as PDFs. And yes, this is illegal. Embeed fonts are a good thing, I like them, but only if I own them and the redistribution rights or can freely do so. This is why default system fonts are so often used for such documents. So that the fonts can be freely passed around.
Like any other piece of software, font design and typograph requires work to create. And its not drudge labor either, it takes both skill and creative ability. Commerical font houses pay people to create these, and then sell their work. Usually, such fonts are licenses so that people can use them to print paper documents, or view other documents on systems where the owners have also licensed the font. Don't have the font? Buy it or go read something else.
Using a propitary font on a website, and redistributing it to people looking at your site is piracy, clear and simple. No ifs, ands, or buts.
The font industry has adopted a very reasonable approach till now. No heavy handed DRM, just a couple of bits and the trust that software will honor them. This is convient for consumers and protects the people who work to create the things we use.
The DMCA might not be entirely appropriate here, and perhaps the case should be tossed on technicalities. But whatever the non-infringing uses and the authors own utility for the program, the people on slashdot have made it clear that the non-infringing use is pretty marginal to the illegal one.
A shame. Perhaps the author should look at writting a font editor of his own. One that defaults to free access for new fonts, and allow increasing security, but not granting new permissions on commercial fonts. This is a fair method of handling the problem, one that appears to have previously been used successfully without resorting to more draconian copyright protections.
Jason Denton Colorado State University [Thoughs and comments are my own, and not reflective of CSU]
i used to work for agfa-monotype. looks like they're still the same assholes they always were. paul stack IS a good lawyer, though. it'll be a tough fight if it does go to court.
comp.fonts FAQ: Are fonts copyrightable?
Looks to me like truetype fonts (and similar formats that have program-like logic included) are copyrightable, but typefaces in general (including the font after rendering) are not.
314-15-9265
I recently read about your harrassment of Tom Murphy, the young graphic designer at Carnegei Mellon University.
Frankly the attempts of large companies to usurp the rights of the rest of us disgusting.
Let me strongly urge you to issue a full, public apology to Mr Murphy.
If there are a number of such programs (not designed primarily for circumvention, but nonetheless contain "circumvention" features as a small part of their total feature set), then those bits don't "effectively control access to a work". So neither set of programs should be ruled illegal.
I never heard of DeCSS until that judge (who used to represent the entertainment industry) tried to ban it. I never heard of embed until they tried to ban it. What other cool stuff will you ban today?
I've copied the program and the pages containing Tom's email correspondance to my website.
I think it would be really funny if lots of people mirror the program and suddenly AGFA Monotype finds that it is all over the net!
I posted the program and source code at: http://3fingersalute.net/other/news/ in case he gets slash-dotted or in case he ever has to take it down because of AGFA Monotype's legal actions.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
from one of the laywers letters: "Use of "embed" on a copyrighted font is a clear violation of the DMCA. "
uhu. So now, let's ban all hammers, because "Use of a hammer on a person is a clear violation of the law".
...it does not say anything, but it gives an impression...
Went to look at their web site. "closed for update." Yuh, right. Why dont AGFA get back to making Panzer tanks. what they do best.
Bill Gates has better things to do than read fucking /.
gg
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Henceforth, my company will not be purchasing fonts from AGFA Monotype. Your persecution of Tom Murphy over a type design tool (Embed) is patently absurd. Embed is a tool to help type designers, not a tool to facilitate the theft of fonts. The embed bit is NOT a copy-protection scheme, and Mr Murphy's program is not marketed as a "theft device". Therefore, I will be taking my business elsewhere (ITC is off the list, too, so don't feel too lonely).
Drop the lawsuit against Tom Murphy and publically apologize, and I'll reconsider.
blog |
I agree with your point whole heartedly. I think that your point about it being wrong is right on.
I do not think however that Tom should be responsible for the use of this application. The app he has written is not milicious in nature. It has a very valid legal use, and he states that on his site.
I don't believe a software vendor has the right to stop him from legally using, and distributing his own creation. I think they need to stop users from using it. In that sense they have an uphill battle I do not envy.
MessEdUp
#/var/www/v
correct in the u.s., europe allows the copyrighting of a typeface design.
i think the company asked it's lawfirm about a way to get publicity, and they got a response back that the dmca is talked about alot or some bs like that(because the place wanted to add it to thier portfolio, or maybee they initiated it by bringing it to the attention of the company that there was a place that *could* be in violation of the dmca). so they decided to try to take out someone they thought could not defend himself as an easy way to win a case and add it to thier portfolio(s), then the guy started fighting back, and it looks like he is winning so far from that last letter:)
also i loved that last line about the dmca being unconstitutional..i totally agree:)
The Truth: There is no string:)
I personally have a policy of NEVER giving out a Credit Card number over the internet, this would make a "One click donation" impossible.
How'd you come up with that policy? Credit cards are typically encrypted with 128-bit crypto, so only you and the site you connect to can see the information. A brute-force search of a 128-bit keyspace on a machine that can do 1 trillion keys/s (approximate power of a million PII-333's) would take over 10^19 years, which is several hundred million times the age of the universe. The ciphers that SSL uses have no known vulnerabilities that would reduce the effective size of the keyspace.
Is there another reason?
Will I retire or break 10K?
AGFA?
I thought this was another lawyer abbriaviation (IANAL)
A Good Fscking Lawyer?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
It is good because it adds to the nonsense that surrounds the DMCA.
It will come a day when such nonsense became so annoying and the DMCA is such a headache that it will be changed or erradicated completely.
You push me, I push you back. In the end, there will be balance. One way or another.
Yeah... it's what usually 600-800 replies for these hysterical DMCA threads? Let's say 10% will hit that "donate $1" button (probably highly unlikely), that gives you $80.
Not everybody who reads comments posts a comment, and only half of Slashdot's readers ever hit comments.pl at all.
I'd love to slashdot the credit card company.
Will I retire or break 10K?
His defense is just lousy.
'Since the enactment of the DMCA, I have only ever run embed on fonts for which I own the copyright.'
That puts him in the clear when it comes to traditional copyright laws.. kinda like making a copy of a game for backup purposes only. However, he is freely distributing his prorgam which can be used to circumvent licencing control. This is covered by the DMCA. Just because he is using the system legally doesn't mean others will, and since it's available for the public to use, he's technically in the wrong.
However, I back him because the DMCA is ridiculous, but he IS breaking its conditions and this case is valid.
mogorific carpentry experiments
From this day forward I will not use fonts anymore
You don't have to go that far. The legal issue under discussion pertains only to an aspect of TrueType font technology. There are alternatives, such as PostScript and good old bitmap fonts. And bitmap fonts are somewhat scalable with algorithms such as scale-blur-median-threshold and 2xSaI.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If I Fork the program, would that be another program in total for them to contest in court? If so, let's just fork everything like this, (DeCss included), and make them have an obsence number of suits to do.
Tibbon
That's like outlawing guns because someone might get shot!
Isn't that what they've been doing gradually for the past few years now?
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
And when they use another IP to get at the protected content, you can sue them under the DMCA!
Wrong. According to 17 USC 1201(e):
You can't hide from the cops behind the DMCA.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Is it illegal for me to wave a magnet in just the right way near my computer as to flip the bit in the font to make it embed?
If I practice and get good, is it illegal for me to use the magnet technique to decrypt DVDs?
I must start practicing my magnet-palm technique...
that he has to waste time fighting assholes like AGFA.
a provision in the DMCA that says if you're writing your own software to do something with the data, you don't have to cripple it by adding in responses to copy protection? I seem to recall that, but I can't think where it was...
Realnetworks, Inc. v. Streambox, Inc.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I do, however, know the DMCA very well, since I've been worried for many years about being sued under the DMCA for my anticensorware workSig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
For those of you who don't think this really matters...
There is a right guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States by the words "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged." I see this right as upholding and ensuring the preservation of the other rights guaranteed in the Constitution.
Any soldier or historian will tell you that effective, non-compromised communication is one of the deciding factors in battles and wars. In a strange twist of fate (or maybe not so strange), the freedom of speech is tied closely to the right to keep and bear arms. Arms will not do a group of determined individuals a lot of good if they don't have an effective non-compromised communication system. Parallels can be drawn between an attack on the people's right to analyze algorithms and an attack on the people's right to keep and bear arms.
What are they afraid of?
Well, this calls for action. This clueless lawyer is probably going to get an order from a kangaroo court, maybe from Kaplan, the judge who ruled that publishing a link on 2600.org was an act of DVD piracy. If this happens, Tom Murphy is going to face huge legal costs.
Since this is really bothering me a lot, I went to EFF's site and made a small donation. Come on, do it now! Do something for your rights now!
If the EFF starts getting donations each time these bozos fling the DMCA around, then maybe they'll understand.
Do you feel safe? Huh uh. Want to admire the handywork of Lewis Kaplan against your right to put a link (a freakin' link!) into your web site? Feel free to bask in his wisdom.
Got the message? Donate now.
Hodie mi, cras tibi - Today it's me, tomorrow it's you (famous last words of a Roman dragged to his execution by his tyrannic government.)
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Quote:
DMCA additions to 17 U.S.C. are unconstitutional
A. Attempting to use the DMCA to restrict dissemination of a computer program is prohibited by the First Amendment, because computer code is protected speech.
-End Quote-
I was a policy debator in high school, we actually had a case that used, as far as I can recall, exactly that quote (or at least exactly the same idea). The problem with that article though is that computer *code* may be protected speech, but what the code *does* is not. Which is an extremely important distinction. Something tells me he won't be paying any damages, but if it goes to court, I don't see him being on the winning side.
The Internet, one place where if you're not right, someone else will set you straight... maybe.
Therefore, it would almost certainly be legal to write a program that takes copyrighted truetype "programs" as input, and produces equivalent programs (that is, they generate the same typeface) that are not copyrighted.
Such a program would have no different legal status from a C preprocessor; a U.S. federal court would probably consider the output to be a derivative work of the input. 17 USC 106 gives the copyright owner of a font file a limited exclusive right to prepare derivative works from a copyrighted work.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I am probably making a mistake by trusting the slashdot editors since they typically don't edit any posts for clarity, but if the mini-description is true, then what is the point? If someone finds a new way to embed AGFA TT fonts then isn't that financially, a VERY GOOD THING for AGFA? Normally corporate executives are deleriously happy when someone finds a new legitimate use for their products because that creates potential for more customers. Of course since copyright is involved, all logic goes out the window. Copyright companies would rather have power than an ever expanding bottom line and/or relevence in the market; Sony, AGFA, et al would rather be able to wield terrible power over their customers' use of their products than have virtually no power and be almost unable to have production meet demand because their products are so hot.
Aybemay ethay illinesssay ofway isthay asecay illway impactway ethay ongevitylay ofway ethay MCADay.
And I will be suing any responders to this post for breach of my security mechanism!
Isn't there something in the consitution about this even? IF, and I mean IF, he had made his living off this program (as the Adobe people have off their programs) then wouldn't that remove his livelyhood from him?
What 'if' the program just 'happened' to have this effect, sorta a side effect, but didn't 'intend' to. Would they have to prove the intent to do the 'crime'? You might accidentally copy something if you take a photograph of a city, a news paper, or something, but does that mean you are infringing?
Tibbon
Isn't it ridiculous? This supposed "access control" is nothing if it isn't honored. It's like when a mime is trapped in a box. The mime is only trapped in the box so long as he continues to pretend that there is a box he's trapped in. If the mime gets bored and wants to leave, he doesn't 'circumvent' the box, he just stops prentending it exists.
Or it's like I put up a sign in front of my house that says "Property surrounded by impenetrable force field". If someone ignores the sign, I may be able to accuse them of trespassing, but I sure as hell couldn't accuse them of breaking and entering because they had to break through my forcefield to trespass! Well, I could, but I'd be branded a looney the moment the words left my mouth. I can only -hope- something similar happens here.
The enemies of Democracy are
There is a way to stop the dmca from being successful in it's efforts to thwart people from being productive. If there is a software product that is under dmca dispute and, and say, a million people download before an injunction is put in place, then the point of the suit is moot, as the product is already distributed. This of course, only applies to free software (gnutella clients for example). I would urge everyone to support an initiative to just download things that the dmca poses threat to prior to injunction (even if you never use them), so as folks trying to inforce it get back to developing new products which actually benefit consumers and generate revenue as opposed to bitching about fricking fonts.
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
Whether this is a DMCA "circumvention" or not is irrelevent. There's this nice legal concept in the US called Ex Post Facto. It is normally applied to criminal law, and means you can't be charged with a crime for an act that was not illegal when it was committed.
You could make a valid argument that the same thing applies here. Even if a judge were to decide it *was* a circumvention, you can argue that it was written for legitimate use, and was developed years before DMCA was passed. As long as there's been no substantial improvements or added capabilities since DMCA, you developed a perfectly legal tool, and have been distributing it legally for several years. You even have had a disclaimer for some time indicating the appropriate usage.
In short, for this and all the other reasons, they have no case.
YOUR mom gave me a wonderful blowjob for a 5 cent donation
If I send them the source code will they sue themselves?
Well, a font is basically a collection of images, and images are copyrightable.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
From now on I'll be doing all my documentation as haiku, starting with my custom streamInputHandler for Apache Fop
This may actually make documentation a little less boring methinks.
I wonder what my boss will say. (If she bothers to look at the code, that is...) Ok, that was terrible!
I don't even dare to count the syllables.
Curse those long class and function names!
Maybe I'll get better with a little practice...
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Then again maybe I'm off base connecting Sklyarov and our champion of free fonts. Blame it on the DMCA!
I only said:
;-)
"Please let Tom and his program Embed alone,
Thank you."
Can I copy your text and send it to them? I hope that if they get multiple copies someone will eventually get a clue
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
>>which can be used to circumvent licencing control
The device's *primary purpose* must be circumventing licensing control. His website is clearly geared toward those people who make their own fonts. And despite what AGFA thinks, all your fonts are not belong to AGFA.
I sent AGFA an email on that web page. I'm a senior SW developer in their industry and I will make my displeasure known to my company and our customers.
I broke out the CC and sent $100.00 to the EFF. AND IT FELT GOOD.
I've already sent a letter to Sen. Santorum on the whole DMCA/SSSCA issue and only got a wishy-washy letter in response. Are you listening, Rick? Because YOUR NEXT VOTE FROM ME IS RIDING ON THIS!
Grrr. I think I'll go bite someone.
WC
Losing the right to profit.
As is said in the comp.fonts FAQ:And thus, anything created from those bitmaps is free of the copyright restrictions on the original font program. Unintuitive, but true!
This is what explains those "1500 fonts for just $4.99!" CDs that you often see in computer stores. A company can buy up a bunch of copyrighted font programs from major type foundries, create scalable lookalikes by the above process, name them something similar but not identical to the originals, and sell collections of the things. 100% legal under current copyright law.
iSKUNK!
Wouldn't changing the bit value be fair use? Or rather, to enable *MORE* fair usage of the font? For that matter, does the copyright specify that that bit has to remain the same? No EULA with fonts, as far as I know.
Next we'll be paying for using the fonts in logos on websites.
A Good Fscking Lawyer?
That's not an abbreviation, that's an oxymoron.
I searched the copyright office's web site for "fonts" and stumbled across this letter:
p df
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/1201/comments/004.
It's a comment submitted by Aladdin Enterprises (the makers of ghostscript) during the Copyright Office's review of the DMCA two years ago. It addresses almost exactly the current situation:
"...There is, in fact, a commercially important situation where this is currently the case. A software package called Fontographer is used very widely for creating TrueType font files. A bug in Fontographer causes it to improperly mark the fonts it produces in a way that causes certain other widely used software packages to consider that the font may not be embedded in documents that use the font. This incorrect marking happens by default, contrary to the wishes of the font author. The authors of Fontographer have been unresponsive to users and authors and have not fixed this problem. Thus a situation has been created where the author of the font wishes to allow users to embed it, but users who remove the protection marking (which is extremely simple technically -- it involves changing one easily-located bit in the font) will be in violation of the law."
If he wins, the legal precedent could be : "If the algorythm is simple enough to express as a haiku, it is protected speech and not a computer process."
Brilliant!!! Now all we have to do is express a complete Turing machine in haiku form, and then we can reduce all other algorithms to it!
That would be a typeface. A font is a collections of 1s and 0s.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Now, please explain how "well regulated militia" translates into 'anyone, even criminals with no required background check'. I don't think that requiring an extensive background check or extra paperwork to buy a gun infringes on the words 'well regulated'.
Please don't get me wrong here, I very much enjoy the safe use of firearms. I was very happy to shoot a Glock 21 last summer. I, however, do support SOME gun control. As with anything, like the DMCA and CBDTPA, TOO MUCH control is a ery bad thing. Making it tougher for a criminal to buy a gun does not violate the 2nd Amendment.
I do not think under most circumstances that a criminal is going to make a "well regulated militia" with the intent of preserving "the security of a free State".
I hope this clears up some confusion about the 2nd amendment, because while the anti-gun lobbyists may turn this argument in their favour, the pro-gun lobbyists certainly do by neglecting the entire first half of the amendment. I take no sides in the debate of pro-gun, anti-gun.
--Adrodieu-- -adrodieu@yahoo.com-
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it" - Voltaire
Thanks for standing up for all of our (Americans anyway) rights.
Best of luck.
I think this has been brought up before, but bears repeating:
What he did before the DMCA was law may well have been legal, but the fact of the matter is, under current law distribution of this software is illegal.
Think about it: if you had a massive marijuana plantation in the 1920's (or whenever the first anti-pot laws got passed), and had developed this marvelous strain of weed, do you think you'd legally be able to distribute said weed today?
Ex Post Facto means you can't be charged for PRIOR acts. Continuing to distribute this software is a CURRENT act, and as such, illegal.
Not that this case makes sense to anyone except a slimy software company and its even slimier lawyers...
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
All previous statements about my position on gun control and the 2nd amendment have not changed from parent post.
--Adrodieu-- -adrodieu@yahoo.com-
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it" - Voltaire
Microsoft will come up with a custom version of SMB and will go after the Samba team, under the DMCA, for creating a circumvention device. Or they will go after people for creating programs that can read MS file systems.
I know that it sounds stupid but after reading this, I can almost see it happening.
Thanks for the link. I've been wanting to support/join/donate to the eff for a long time and I just did it. I can't wait for my t-shirt!
But, it clear from comments here that at least some people are using the program to illegally embeed fonts in documents, such as PDFs.
But, it clear from comments here that at least some people are using hammers to illegally bash organs in, such as heads.
should be 575
not a haiku
Does anybody know of a comprehensive archive of source-code that's the subject of legal disputes like this? (DeCSS, etc.)
This article makes me feel like doing some mirroring....
What the founding fathers meant 225 years ago may or may not be what you think they meant. They aren't around to ask. You can gauge their opinions from some of their writings, but it really is moot. What was applicable in the 1770's is not so applicable today. World politics are much different, technology is different, etc. The constitution was written with enough flexibility that the future is not handcuffed by the circumstances of the Revolutionary times.
What is important today is the will of the people of the United States, and the interpretation of the constitution by the institutions of government.
I found this on the agfamonotype website:
There are four levels of embedding with TrueType and OpenType font data. These levels are set by the font developer, and written into the font data. The user cannot change the embedding level. [my emphasis]
Is it possible that AGFA's VP of Marketing, believing his own communications department got overly excited about a program that does something that cannot be done?
Kudos to Tom7 for not only standing up to these guys, but in doing so by beating them at their own game with a well-researched, thoughtful rebuttal argument. Perhaps if more people stood up to "official and forceful" sounding lawyer's letters, fewer of these things would end up in court and we could bleed the lawyers a little of their ill-gotten fees.
I think that Web page is wrong.
SCMS allows one generation of digital copying (so it wouldn't stop someone from copying a CD to DAT and then returning the CD; the generally horrible return policies of record stores would do that).
SCMS requires two bits for the UNLIMITED COPYING, ONE GENERATION ALLOWED, NO DIGITAL COPYING state.
SCMS came about years after CDs came out, and was not the record companies' first choice. CopyCode audio notching would have blocked ALL recording on new DAT and analog cassette recorders. This leads me to believe that the record companies just grabbed two unused bits out of the subcode area, and retroactively designated them as SCMS bits (with '00' meaning 'ONE GENERATION ALLOWED').
And what they are asking him to cease and desist is his current distribution. (of an excellent program which is not primarily used for blahblahblah. Ex post facto does not apply. IANAL
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
You say that like you haven't already been branded a looney.
Again, I hate the DMCA and hope Tom wins. Indeed, I just sent him $5 bucks to help out (check your AOL account, Tom), but I don't think he'll win using the argument that he didn't violate the DMCA.
Miko O'Sullivan
I recently read about your harassment of Mr. Tom Murphy, of Carnegie Mellon University. Not only is the DMCA a bad law - usurping the rights of the general public mostly to the benefit of large companies - but wielding it in such a manner is bound to generate the type of publicity a company would want to avoid. Certainly you're aware that the next generation of business leaders and politicians (my generation -- I'm 30) is much more technologically competent (and aware of the implications of bad tech laws) than the current generation, and will not be afraid to show it with our votes AND our wallets. I can assure you that you will receive no business from my own company.
missing sig
If it's not a personal right, why cannot a tyrannical government just take the guns away, so as to benefit the state?
Instead of "thinking" what they thought, why not check out what they actually thought? The "Federalist Papers" were a series of articles written by the founders, published in newspapers, in an attempt to convince the American people they should ratify the Constitution. There are also numerous letters among Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, etc. They make it clear that a person should be armed to disourage foreign invasion, but also to protect themselves from federal gov't tyranny and overreach. Of course, Abraham Lincoln and his civil war showed who was really in charge....
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Nobody is arguing anything criminal.
This discussion is about a civil matter.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
So, my view is, who cares whether George Washington or Alexander Hamilton wanted me to own a weapon: I am afraid of a) criminals and b) the government, so I want a fucking firearm. If that's currently illegal, then I want the law to change. Otherwise, it better stay legal.
And why would I want to spend that much time to write a program just for my own pleasure of making free fonts? I should NOT have to go to that much trouble just to be safe from the law.
ahah... this post gets funnier and funnier as it is updated with timely info (x-box)...
If you're distributing embed, please assist AGFA's lawyer, Paul Stack, by confessing your distribution of embed. You can fax your confession to 312-782-0936. Here's the confession I just sent:
Hello. I wish to confess that I, too, am distributing the embed program on my website. Please send a demand letter to the following
address:
Russell Nelson
521 Pleasant Valley Rd.
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213
Do not bother sending me legal notices via email or fax.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Why waste your time posting article text when theres a better way to get some of that sweet sweet karma.
Write some software that will piss off corporation X, post your tale of woe to slashdot and watch as every post you make goes straight to (+5 Insightful).
I don't know...
the Constitution is a living document; it really doesn't matter what the founders were thinking ( we have already rejected what the thought about slavery, womens rights, etc...)
If guns are easy enough to obtain by people that would do me harm, thats infringing upon my life, liberty and hapiness..
Robert A. Filpi Stack & Filpi Chtd Ste 411 140 S. Dearborn Chicago IL 60603 312/782-0690 312/782-0936
If you read what the founders wrote outside of the constitution, you will be pretty satisified tht they meant that anyone who wanted to own a gun should be able to own a gun. In this manner was tyrrany to be prevented. We don't exactly have a tyrranical government yet, but neither has the government managed to confiscate everybody's guns either.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
afraid of criminals? fine, i get it. So join civic organizations, develop community ties to the police, fight for tougher penalties and laws that make it tougher for criminals to get guns.
afraid of the government?
Man, theres way too many too much paranoia about that.
what are you going to do with your gun against the most powerful entity in the history of mankind?
get help for that, man.
Stupid sheep. You really think that anyone has any rights anymore? Between the major corporations that control 99% of the assets to their puppet representatives in Congress, to Dubya, President of the United States of OPEC, nobody has any freedom to do anything. At this rate, we'd be better off moving to China.
Oh, and you all suck. Hard.
Protect society from violent criminals by removing them from society. Don't let them out and then naively presume that they're going to follow the law and not own a gun. They're criminals. These are the people who have proven that they're not interested in following the law.
That is the best idea I have heard as a general way to strike back at the DMCA that I have heard in a long time!
Who would have thought that Richard Stallman was correct all these years regarding free-as-in-speech software? How many of you just thought he was a paranoid lunatic?
From The Right To Read:
- Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison.
--Jeff++... In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.
ipv6 is my vpn
AGFA's lawyers aren't cops, they're private entities
However, they are attorneys licensed by a State and thus may fall under "a person acting pursuant to a contract with the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State."
Will I retire or break 10K?
I don't agree with this. Slashdot draws a large amount of intellectually dishonest, double-thinking low-lives who simoultaneously bitch about anti-piracy measures, while doing their best to vindicate those who initiate such measures. Not every user is a slashdot freeloader.
i cant imagine what karma you racked up tonight....
Apparently now every pissant little software corp is going to try to use the DMCA to flex its shrimpy muscles and feel manly by smacking around the Linux geeks, and the Linux geeks will see it as yet more evidence they're living some romantic battle against evil.
Here comes a wave of copycat DMCA fights. =P
Oh, I've also thought of the perfect anti-circumvention scheme! Every bit of software will have the following written as a comment at the head of the program: "Everything in this program is ours and you can't play with it. Doing so is circumvention". Voila, now companies can saddle the courts with controlling their crudware, what a lovely use of tax dollars.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
"the lawyers say"? Lawyers? Since when do they know crap? I'm reminded of a Dilbert strip:
Idiot: So, tell me about our product.
Dilbert: Our product is beige. It uses electricity.
Idiot: Woah, brain overload!
I'm sure these lawyers had to have explained to them what a "bit" is so they could sound convincing, I guess.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Sorry... Been there done that. The US recognizes no moral rights in any artistic work. Copyright only exists because of expediency, not for a moral reason.
By this same argument.. It takes effort to shit if you're constipated... Thus, shit can be an artistic work and should be protected. In fact, 'American Standard' (maker of toilets) should be paying me for the destruction of my artistic work.
Sorry, but more practically, the 'sweat of the brow' argument has been discounted by the Supreme Court. (See Feist v. Rural Telephone).
``In Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service Company, the Supreme Court recently put to rest the "sweat of the brow" doctrine, holding that originality is a sine qua non of copyright law, regardless of the author's efforts in collecting and assembling facts.'' -- http://www.lgu.com/cr38.htm
IE, the very notion that it takes effort to create a typeface is irrelevant to its copyrightable status. (And, as typefaces are NOT copyrightable, this is moot in any case.)
The program (a TTF file) that creates a typeface is a protectable entity under copyright, but only because it is creative, not because of the effort put into it.
Another mirror. Add more people please.
http://jerbaker.dhs.org/embed
Does anyone else think AFAG Monotype when they see that name? Aren't they suing under the MACD?
The real threat is the compiler. If he and others couldn't compile his source code they couldn't mess with the fonts. This applies any time a compiler is used to compile code which can be used to circumvent copy protection. Not outlawing compilers leads to going after symptoms while neglecting the cause, the ability of intellectual property infringing villains to willy nilly whip up any source code they wish and then actually compile it. How long can such excessive freedom be allowed to last? It is a clear invitation to rampant, uncontrolled, unmonitored, unregulated, creativity.
This means that none of your fonts (even those created by yourself) can be embedded in PDF.
So, every font producer probably has written an EMBED-like program for themselves. I know 'cause I've written it twice: Sometime in 1992, but then lost the source code, and again a couple of weeks ago.
Agfa/ITC/Monotype/Letraset/whateverCorpWeAreGobbli ngUpThisWeek are bullying Tom around for a program which has a predominant legitimate use for every font producer.
Oh, BTW, Macromedia will never fix the endless amount of bugs in Fontographer. Development is on hold, the last version was published eight years ago. Click here for my take on this.
-Martin
SoftMaker Office for Windows|Linux|Android
The agfa website is very much a rip-off of one of the helix-gnome themes if I'm not mistaking. Seems like you could sue them for stealing gpl'ed art :)
This is the crappiest company that ever existed, they send SPAM, they LIE about rebates, their PRODUCTS suck (errors in code.) Their scanner shit is propriatary. I hope this company CRASHES and BURNS. Fuck AFGA, they aren't worth the salt on my nutsack.
/* :-)
;
> I remember a version of DeCSS in a few hundred bytes. How short can you make this one?
How about 597 bytes?
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
FILE *F;
int c() {return fgetc(F);}
void s(unsigned long t) {fseek(F,t,0);}
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
int a,x;
char *want="OS/2", *p;
F=fopen(argv[1],"rb+");
s(12);
for (;;) {
p = want;
while (*p && c()==*p++)
if (!*p) {
unsigned long cs,l=0,t=0,sum=0;
cs=ftell(F); s(cs+4);
for (x=4;x--;) t|=c()<<(8*x);
for (x=4;x--;) l|=c()<<(8*x);
s(t+8); fputc(0,F); fputc(0,F);
s(t); for (x=l;x--;) sum+=c();
s(cs); for (x=4;x--;) fputc(0xff&(sum>>(x*8)),F);
exit(0);
}
while (*p++) c();
for (x=12;x--;) c();
}
}
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
That was terrible
Don't dare count the syllables
Curse those long class names
Sorry, couldn't resist.
But seriously I'm with you in spirit.
All CD Audio disks have a "Copyright" bit. It's a "flag", really, not anti-circumvention device, since no ripper listens to it.
Getting legal on this guy is like taping a license agreement to a wad of money, putting it on the sidewalk, and arresting anyone who doesn't sign the agreement. It's too big of a stretch.
...Museum of Modern Art sues Kodak (Camera)
...Addison-Wesley sues Xerox (Photocopier)
...Sony sues Bell ExpressVu (PVR)
This law is assinine. I wonder how long it is before the inventor of the floppy disk gets sue, lord knows I used them to pirate millions of games.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
If the chances of getting shot when breaking into someones house is 1 in 100 then it likely won't stop most crooks. If the chance is 1 in 3 or better then I think you would see a sharp decrease in breakins.
Break into my house and you will be shot.
Punish the wrong-doer and don't let them get by with a slap on the wrist. The problem hasn't been with the laws, its been with the enforcement of the laws. The reason the death penalty doesn't work is because it is way off in the future and you might die of natural causes first. How is this due process?
Nobody is arguing anything criminal.
This discussion is about a civil matter.
DMCA is a criminal matter, not a civil one.
Just another reason not to use credit.
#include <stdio.h>r (;;){p=want;while( *p&&c()==*p++);- ;)t|=c()<<(8*x);for(x=4;x--;)l|=c ()<<(8*x);( x=l;x--;)sum +=c();; }}
FILE *F; int c(){return fgetc(F);}void s(unsigned long t){fseek(F,t,0);}
int main(int argc, char **argv){int a,x;char *want="OS/2",*p;
F=fopen(argv[1],"rb+");s(12);fo
if(!*p){unsigned long cs,l=0,t=0,sum=0;cs=ftell(F);s(cs+4);
for(x=4;x-
s(t+8);fputc(0,F);fputc(0,F);s(t);for
s(cs);for(x=4;x--;)fputc(0xff&(sum>>(x*8 )),F);exit(0);
}while(*p++)c();for(x=12;x--;)c()
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
Interesting. It's at +4 now, labled as Informative. I don't know about the various political fights that go on in the OSS movement, but Malcontent's prediction seems to be wrong..
This statement reinforced why this (mis-)use of the DMCA is a clear violation of free speech as protected by the First Ammendment (theoretically), althought I believe that the First Ammendment only applies to the government doing the censoring, not corporate individuals. If it is protected speech (IANAL), then I can tell someone in words how to do it, i.e. "Find bit x and set it to 0". But I can't distribute that in code, nor apparently even in source form.
Hmm, I wonder why the DVD CCA hasn't gone after the guy who wrote the haiku? Are they afraid of bad press? More bad press?
No. You can *trademark* a typeface name. As a few examples of registered typeface trademarks, there are Times Roman (U.S. registration 417,439, October 30, 1945 to Eltra Corporation, now part of Allied); Helvetica (U.S. registration 825,989, March 21, 1967, also to Eltra-Allied), and Lucida (U.S. reg. 1,314,574 to Bigelow & Holmes). Most countries offer trademark registration and protection, and it is common for a typeface name to be registered in many countries.
Digital (as opposed to analog) fonts may be protected by copyright of digital data and of computer programs. It has been established that computer software is copyrightable. Therefore, software that embodies a typeface, e.g. a digital font, is presumably also protected. There is some objection to this kind of copyright, on the grounds that the ultimate output of the program or the result of the data (i.e. a typeface design) is not copyrightable. However, the current belief expressed by the National Commission on New Technological Use of Copyrighted Works is that software is copyrightable even if its function is to produce ultimately a non-copyrightable work. Hence, typefaces produced by Metafont or PostScript(R), two computer languages which represent fonts as programs, are presumably copyrightable. Typefaces represented as bit-map data, run-length codes, spline outlines, and other digital data formats, may also be copyrightable. Some firms do copyright digital fonts as digital data. The copyright office is currently reviewing this practice to determine if it is acceptable.
The designs of typefaces may be patented in the U.S. under existing design patent law. Many designs are patented, but type designers generally don't like the patent process because it is slow, expensive, and uncertain.
The reason you see so many fonts that appear to be identical is there is no copyright on the design itself. However, you cannot copy the program or digital data which is what you would be doing if you just kept the typeface you get from a designer.
Interestingly, there has been a story (on NPR?) today mentioning how credit card companies have been quietly updating the terms in their credit card contracts. Supposedly, buried in there is an agreement that if the credit card user has a dispute with the credit card company, he may no longer sue them outright and instead agrees to use binding arbitration.
You (or perhaps NPR) have odd definitions for the words "quietly" and "buried". In addition to the little legalese-filled pamphlet (labelled "Important Amendment to Your Cardmember Agreement Regarding Binding Arbitration"), my statement had a sentence right under the balance reading, "Please read the enclosed amendment to your cardmember agreement; it contains important information about binding arbitration." In addition, the statement I received just yesterday had a sentence under the balance reading, "You should have received an amendment to your cardmember agreement with last month's statement regarding binding arbitration; if you did not, please call our customer service center to have a copy sent to you."
I have five credit cards, and they are all absolutely shouting about binding arbitration.
Most legal understandings of the second amendment allude to that right as being the right for the country to build and maintain a military; not your personal right to own a gun.
The language in the Constitution is not difficult to read. It's easy to understand. And every word of the Bill of Rights details things that the government *cannot* do. The 2nd Amendment is the assurance that the government cannot take away your weaponry.
Why is this so important? Because if it become neccessary to remove the government by force, the citizenry needs the weaponry to do it. Remember, these guys just got through fighting a war with their government and winning their independance. They knew exactly how important weapons can be in the hands of the common man. Don't think it's not true today. It is. The right man in the right place with the right weapon can topple any regime.
The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to keep the power of the government under the people's final control. Period.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
So, my friend, call your site a "Font Library".
Libraries are exempt!
I submit that in the post-war period, where soldiers and yeoman militias essentially had the same weaponry, this amendment would create the intended deterrent to government action.
However, in the modern age, we've come to realize information has as much (nay, more) power than guns. So control of the media, something the government has a hand in, of the intelligence agencies, of the police, etc. all translates to the government being able to do what it thinks is appropriate regardless of the presence of arms in the citizenry.
Additionally, I submit that the arms that can be borne by the citizenry (which does not, for the most part, include tanks, laser guided smart bombs and stealth fighters, etc) would fare very poorly (as would the citizenry) in a general revolt in which they were opposed by the military. Revolution isn't the simple matter it once was, nor is it perhaps even relevant in the same manner anymore.
On the other hand, the epidemic violent crime in America may be far more directly relevant.
Of course, that's just me criticising. The ultimate defence for the ownership of some (I do not believe I need to own a recoilless rifle for example) firearms seems to me to be the lack of need to abrogate that right. If I'm a gun enthusiast who takes all requisite precautions, there really isn't any reason the government needs to legislate away my ownership (at least for safety reasons). My own competence and diligence will keep my weapons safely out of the hands of miscreants.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
No. You should just refrain from distributing a program which is being widely used to break the law.
If someone writes to you and says "I an making my own fonts, I need this tool", and you provide it, that is one thing. But how many of your users are really doing that?
Jason Denton Colorado State University [Thoughs and comments are my own, and not reflective of CSU]
I don't believe that it's being widely used to break the law. All the comments I've received have been from people using it for legitimate purposes.
Me too:
----
It has come to my attention that AGFA Monotype is threatening to use the DMCA legislation to protect the unsetting of the "don't embed" bit in certain fonts.
This is absurd, and unfortunately seems to be another example of a corporation who does not seem to understand that the best way to lose customers is to treat them like criminals.
The DMCA as currently worded prevents trafficking in programs which can be used to remove copy protection. Since the embed protection (which is, incidentally, not the same thing as copy protection) can be undone using the "debug" program present in every Microsoft operating system since at least MS-DOS 2.0, this would make virtually every desktop machine on the planet an infringing system.
The DMCA is widely seen as fundamentally flawed legislation, due to examples such as the one in the previous paragraph. By endorsing it through use (or threats of use, anyway), your corporation is tarred with the same brush.
----
Sean Ellis
Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
In case anybody is searching for "prior art" on unspecified bits/bytes, the header of the ".DBF" format used by dBASE and cousins has several bytes declared as "for future use", and indeed various vendors did use them for different purposes.
I don't think anybody holds a patent on the format, since it was created before the era of mass software patents.
For one thing, I don't forsee "the people vs. the military" if it became necessary to take out the US government. For one thing, the military is made up of the people. I highly doubt that the majority of military personel would be willing to use military weapons on US citizens.
Secondly, violent crime does not decrease as the number of guns goes down. Quite the opposite in fact, depending on which studies you look at. It's far from proven either way, admittedly.
The art of revolution may have changed, I agree. But if it really came to the point where revolution became necessary, I think the infrastructure would have also toppled to the point where a firearm, even a handgun, would be a damned important thing to have.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Congrats on the meta-troll
As one of the few remaining font foundries, we at Agfa Monotype spend a great deal of our time developing high quality fonts. We then market our own fonts, as well as the fonts of many smaller type design houses and individual designers that we have licensed. Our employees and the many independent designers that we represent feed their families and pay their bills from the revenues that we together earn from licensing fonts. Unfortunately, a few people neither understand nor care about the time, effort, and expertise required to make fonts that meet today's technical standards.
It actually comes as a surprise to some otherwise knowledgeable individuals that people actually rely on the development and licensing of fonts for their livelihood. These individuals fail to appreciate that fonts are valuable intellectual property and that the creator of a font, like the creator of any other software, has the right to determine how it will be used by the public.
Because we are dealing with both our property and the property of small independent font developers, Agfa Monotype actively protects this property. We try hard to encourage people to do the right thing before we resort to legal action. We do this by explaining, as best we can, our position. We do so again today.
TrueType fonts have the capability to be embedded in electronic documents. Embedding means that all or part of a font is incorporated in an electronic document, and if that electronic document is transmitted to a third party via the Internet or e-mail, the font software used to create the document goes along as well. The TrueType format allows the creator of a font to specify one of four different levels of embedding for the font: (1) no embedding at all, (2) embedding for viewing and printing, but not editing, (3) embedding for viewing, printing and editing, and (4) fully installable embedding.
Most TrueType developers set the embedding of their fonts at level 2, under which the recipient of an electronic document can use the font software to view and print the document, but cannot use the font to edit the document or create new documents. Some small developers working on complicated or specialized fonts set the TrueType font for no embedding at all. In each case, the person creating the font determines what can be done with it by selecting the level of permitted embedding.
Virtually no commercial font developers set their embedding bits at level 4, because fully installable embedding means that the recipient of a single electronic document automatically and permanently acquires all of the font software contained in that document, the same as if he or she had purchased it. For example, if a person creates a document in Microsoft Word using a fully embeddable font and sends that document via e-mail to a recipient, the recipient, upon opening the document, automatically and permanently installs into his or her computer the entire font used to create the document. This recipient now has complete use of the software for all future documents, as if he or she had purchased it. Further, any electronic document created using this font by the recipient can be forwarded to yet another third-party, and so on. The destructive nature of a fully embeddable setting to a copyrighted font is obvious.
We have become aware of the distribution of a program that has only one function, that is, to alter the embedding bits on a TrueType font to make the font fully embeddable. In other words, even though the creator of a particular TrueType font may have carefully limited the distribution of the font by setting the embedding bits to level 1 or level 2, this software alters these bits to a level 4, installable embedding.
When Agfa Monotype privately demanded that the author of this program stop distributing it, the author refused. One ground claimed for refusing is that there was a legitimate purpose for the software, namely to change the embedding bits on font software the author created so he could make his own fonts fully installable. It is difficult for us to understand why the author of a font would need software to alter embedding bits in his own font, since the tools widely used to create TrueType fonts allow the creator to specify or later change the level of desired embedding. Nevertheless, the author's asserted belief that his software is protected by a supposed legitimate purpose, even if there is a legitimate purpose, is erroneous.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") makes it a violation of federal law to distribute a product that circumvents a "technological measure" that controls access to a copyrighted work. Embedding bits are obviously such a technological measure, the program at question clearly circumvents the embedding bits, and the fonts containing the embedding bits are copyrighted. One court recently held:
Another recent court recently held:
We have gone to some lengths to explain our position, but we have done so because the vast majority of software developers wish to respect the property rights of others and want to understand and obey the law. Further, we feel that an accurate understanding of the issues will result in any fair-minded person seeing the merits of Agfa Monotype's position. Insofar as TrueType fonts are concerned, therefore, this much is clear: Embedding bits are "technological measures" which cannot be circumvented without running afoul of the DCMA. Embedding bits are also an important method by which the creator of font software can protect the results of many hours of his or her labor and years of expertise. Agfa Monotype will always seek to have individuals conform their conduct to the requirements of law by explaining its position to them and we will continue to do so here. However, once we have explained and an individual persists in damaging the property of both Agfa Monotype and the many individual type designers who license their fonts to Agfa Monotype, we are prepared, however reluctantly, to take necessary action to protect our respective rights.