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..."

Comments

I really think that he should..

[antistuff]

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.

Unspecified bit...

[chill]

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.

Fontographer

[ZiZ]

He used Fontographer to create these fonts, a program which allows you to (while editing a font) set or reset the embedding bits. Does this imply that, under the DMCA, any (nominally) legal content-creation program can be ruled unlawful if it has the ability to read a file instead of merely write a file?

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...)

Let AGFA Monotype know how you feel!

[NanoGator]

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.

Simple Program!

[MutantEnemy]

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.

I read the letters

[SkyLeach]

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).

leverage Slashdot for legal expenses

[abde]

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.

The DMCA and single bits

[Seth Finkelstein]

There's a case discussing single bits and the DMCA. See

Realnetworks, Inc. v. Streambox, Inc.

18. Streambox also argues that the VCR does not violate the DMCA because the Copy Switch that avoids does not "effectively protect" against the unauthorized copying of 12 copyrighted works as required by S 1201(a)(3)(B). Streambox claims this "effective protection is lacking because an enterprising end-user could potentially use other means to record streaming audio content as it is played by the end-user's computer speakers. This argument fails because the Copy Switch, in the ordinary course of its operation when it is on, restricts and limits the ability of people to make perfect digital copies of a copyrighted work. The Copy Switch therefore constitutes a technological measure that effectively protects a copyright owner's rights under section 1201(a)(3)(B).

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 work

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Primary use: Work around Fontographer's bugs

[martin-k]

As a font producer - www.freefont.de - for over ten years, I can say one thing: The primary use of this program is to work around a major bug in Fontographer 4.1: It sets the embedding bits wrong for every font you generate -- mind you, not setting the values too relaxed or too restrictive, but just plain wrong.

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