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

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.

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.