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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.
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
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.
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."
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."
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
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.
This is not a case of "you can't do what you want to your own fonts".
Rather, this is a case of "while you can do what you want with your own fonts, you can't distribute a tool to let other people do what they want to their fonts without writing their own software".
It's still wrong and still probably outside the scope of the DMCA, but not quite as bleak as you state.
It's public domain. He obviously doesn't mind
/* location for checksum */ ; ; ; ; /* write checksum */
/*
* This program is for setting TTF files to Installable Embedding mode.
*
* Note that using this to embed fonts which you are not licensed to embed
* does not make it legal.
*
* This code was written by Tom Murphy 7, and is public domain. Use at your
* own risk...
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
void fatal();
int main (int argc, char**argv) {
FILE * inways;
if (argc != 2)
printf("Usage: %s font.ttf\n\nPublic Domain software by Tom 7. Use at your own risk.\n",argv[0]);
else if (inways = fopen(argv[1],"rb+")) {
int a,x;
char type[5];
type[4]=0;
fseek(inways,12,0);
for (;;) {
for (x=0;x<4;x++) if (EOF == (type[x] = getc(inways))) fatal();
if (!strcmp(type,"OS/2")) {
int length;
unsigned long loc, fstype, sum=0;
loc=ftell(inways);
for (x=4;x--;) if (EOF == getc(inways)) fatal();
fstype = fgetc(inways) << 24;
fstype |= fgetc(inways) << 16;
fstype |= fgetc(inways) << 8
fstype |= fgetc(inways)
length = fgetc(inways) << 24;
length |= fgetc(inways) << 16;
length |= fgetc(inways) << 8
length |= fgetc(inways)
/* printf("fstype: %d length: %d\n",fstype,length);*/
if (fseek(inways,fstype+8,0)) fatal();
fputc(0,inways);
fputc(0,inways);
fseek(inways,fstype,0);
for (x=length;x--;)
sum += fgetc(inways);
fseek(inways,loc,0);
fputc(sum>>24,inways);
fputc(255&(sum>>16),inways);
fputc(255&(sum>>8), inways);
fputc(255&sum , inways);
fclose(inways);
exit(0);
}
for (x=12;x--;) if (EOF == getc(inways)) fatal();
}
} else
printf("I wasn't able to open the file %s.\n", argv[1]);
}
void fatal() { fprintf(stderr,"Malformed TTF file.\n");
exit(-1); }
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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
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.
From this day forward I will not use fonts anymore!!!
I Heart Sorting Networks
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.
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...?
I don't mind. It's also in the public domain, so I can't stop you.
But, it's important that you are not acting in concert with me -- your actions are independent. (That also of course makes it harder for them to use legal measures to get it taken down.)
Writing new programs that do the same thing would also make it quite annoying for them...
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?
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]
Oh, don't assume that it wouldn't be laughed out of court. All that Agfa did is send some letters threatening legal action -- which they can do until they go blue in the face, whether or not their case has any merit.
No judge is currently taking this seriously; that's because no judge has seen this case. Right now, it's just at the point of mean and scary-sounding letters talking about what Agfa might do if Tom refuses to capitulate.
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
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.
And the reason guns are protected under the constitution? You won't find it in the constitution, but you'll find it in the Federalist Papers.
It's to protect yourself against an over zealous * government.*
Nope, don't see no over zealous government around here. Move along people.
( P.S. I'm not a "gun nut." I hate the things and not only haven't ever owned one, I've never fired one. That doesn't preclude me from understanding their legal function under American political philosophy)
KFG
"Writing new programs that do the same thing would also make it quite annoying for them..."
:)
Hmm.... first person to write an implementation in Brainfuck gets a cookie.
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."
Paul F. Stack
Member
Stack & Filpi,
Chartered
Suite 411, 140 South Dearborn Street
Chicago, Illinois 60603-5298
(Cook Co.)
Telephone: 312-782-0690
Facsimile: 312-782-0936
Here's his email addy. AOL, kinda figures, don't it?
pstack7901@aol.com
KFG
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.
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
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!
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."
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.
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.
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
However, they might be encouraged to go after people who were dumb enough to make threats (you know SOMEONE would do it) or lump it all under a RICO case for harassment.
If you want to be effective, go after the source of the complaint. More than likely, AGFA went to the lawyers saying they wanted it stopped, and the lawyers have to act in the best interest of their CLIENT.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
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.
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
I am a driver licensed by a State. Does this mean that I may be able to circumvent the DMCA?
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