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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.
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.
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."
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.
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
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
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 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.
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...
Does anyone have the email address for
Mr. Paul F. Stack
Stack & Filpi Chtd.
of Chicago, IL handy?
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.
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)
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.
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