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Font Raid Spells Trouble for Publisher
rs232 writes to tell us The Register is reporting on a publishing firm that got fined for using unlicensed fonts. The firm claimed to only be actively using one font, but was found to be using approximately 11,000. In addition to their font headaches, the firm was also found to be unlicensed on 95% of their Adobe software and 75% of their Microsoft software — talk about a bad week.
You've got a good point. Sure the BSA proclaims that 75% of their Office licenses were "pirated" but how many really is that? 4 PC's? 400?
Is it a police organization? A government agency charged with protecting the virtue of copyright? What company in their right mind lets some schmuck come in and do an audit without a warrant?
Unless this is a normal occurance in England...
They should get busted. I'm wishy-washy on the idea of copyright (and how far it should extend) but one thing I do believe is that businesses should pay for software with which they make money. It's one thing for the hobbyist who uses photoshop to make desktop backgrounds not to pay for it; it's another thing when it's a world-class photographer who supports themselves based on their photoshop output.
A question, though - why exactly is this in the YRO section? It has nothing to do with someone's guaranteed rights being violated or abridged. In fact, it is just the opposite; Adobe's rights (and those of the font distributors) are being protected. Someone broke the law, and got turned in by an ex-employee, probably somebody they crapped on. Fuck 'em, let them pay the full fines, and then some. Personally, I suggest collecting the fines from the employees of the company that made the decision to use unlicensed software and fonts. Why should they get off scott free? They're the ones who actually broke the law, the company charter didn't fly its ass up out of the file cabinet and insert the CD in the drive.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I would have thought the same thing about fonts.
Click here or here.
I was a little dismayed when I first read the blurb. I could swear there wasn't any type of legal protection for typefaces in US law... One of the reasons that Adobe et al. made a push towards programmatically described fonts (Type 1 and Type 3). Although they couldn't protect the typeface itself, they could protect the copyrighted code that generated the font.
Then I remembered where the register.co.uk was located. Thank god... I was almost forced to RTFA. Phew.
You can't win, Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
It's one thing for the hobbyist who uses photoshop to make desktop backgrounds not to pay for it; it's another thing when it's a world-class photographer who supports themselves based on their photoshop output.
It sounds like you are trying to justify piracy. Good luck!
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Most fonts allow embedding as part of the liscense.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
This is, by far, the simplest part of creating a font; so simple that an autotracer does a pretty good job. What's difficult is properly hinting a TrueType font (indeed, there are almost no properly hinted such beasts; hinting a Type1 font is much easier) and choosing the right spacing between characters. The only parts of a font that I would consider a program are the TT hinting and the OpenType contextual sostitution instructions.
As far as I know even a US court agreed that a font is nothing more than a collection of data (coordinates of Bezier curves); oddly, the same court stated that these data were copywritable (see Luc Devroye account on the SSi/Adobe case).
Clearly this leaves out the most difficult and creative part: designing the typeface. It's a form of art, and only the complete mess the US copyright statutes are could fail to protect them while protecting a collection of data!
There's a funny part to this mess: IANAL, but I understand that a font released under the GPL would "contaminate" any pdf embedding it, with really interesting results...
I suspect it's because the vast majority of us that write code at work aren't selling it to anyone. Does anyone really want an illicit copy of some data entry application I've written around here for our sales people? Probably not. How would they even get said copy? No, the only ones "buying" our software are our employers and it's not being written with the purpose that it will make money, only that it will fill a business need.
Yet your CEO is able to justify accepting jobs from customers he cannot, technically, support. This analogy is admittedly imprecise, but if a customer came in with a job on eight-inch floppies, would you accept it? Or would you turn the customer away, saying, "Sorry, we don't have the facilities to read your job data?"
Let's assume computers didn't exist, and you were still using cast lead type. If a customer came in requesting a job in Garamond, and you didn't have a case of Garamond, would you turn away the job, or suggest substituting a typeface you do have?
If we make the analogy more precise, and the customer walks in with their own case of Garamond type, would you return the type to them when the job was complete?
It's my personal view that computer software and data, once it's been created, is essentially valueless, since it can be infinitely duplicated at zero cost. So I don't see unsanctioned copying ("piracy") as a problem, but merely an inevitability that all software authors and vendors must acknowledge and learn to live with. However, even I am taken aback by the rather cavalier attitude your CEO seems to show for the economic realities facing those who created the tools he uses to conduct his business and satisfy his customers.
Our civilization stands at a crossroads in our social and economic evolution. The computer heralds a day where even physical goods can be duplicated infinitely and effortlessly (assuming we survive the rising seas), and copyrights and patents as we conceptualize them today truly will become meaningless. But we're in a transition period, and that future is in peril. Physical artifacts can't be freely duplicated -- a fundamental assumption of the old economy -- but digital artifacts can, which the old economy can't cope with. It will take an exercise of good character and strong ethics by many people to carry us through to the real New Economy.
Your CEO may care to participate in this transition, and acknowledge the good work he is able to do by rewarding the good work of others.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Read the software license you agreed to when you installed most any software.
Just wondering... does the license apply if the software is pirated?
I mean, isn't the customer signaling their intent to pay zero for the product and basically saying "I don't intend to follow your license. If I push this little button will you install for me anyway?"
Seems to me that the software industry is trying to show "intent to consent" to the license where no such thing exists.
I know that the ONLY reason that I push the button is that is what I have to do to install it.
Seems to me that a "contract" or "license" has to be agreed upon BEFORE accepting payment for the product to be legal... not afterwards.
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
"Typefaces are not copyrightable, but computer generated fonts count as programs, and so they are copyrightable."
Yet another of these "...but, it's on a computer!" exceptions. Why should computer fonts be copyrightable, when everyone accepts that typefaces are not?
I think you mean for propaganda purposes.
Great Intellect...
I'm sure that it was actually some small number of machines - could be 3 - so "3 machines had unlicensed software" vs. "75% of their Office installations were pirated" does make sense.
BUT!
I have no problem with individuals pirating software for their personal use. I, personally, have pirated just absurd quantities of software throughout the years - everything from Visual Studio and Office on to every Adobe and Macromedia app out there, and then into some really esoteric and freakishly expensive 3D software. And I learned how to use most of the tools I used professionally on pirated copies. However, if I found something useful and wanted to make it into a business, I bought a legit copy.
To me, using pirated software to make money is just flat out wrong. Not an acceptable practice at all. Even if it's "only" a couple of copies of Office (and, after all, MSFT is the devil) - still not acceptable. I am sure that Camden would be pissed if people stopped paying them for their work, or if people simply took their copyrighted works and re-published them to sell as their own. It's just not kosher.
If a business can't afford the tools they need to do a job, then they either need to find cheaper tools, change the way they do business, negotiate with the vendors, or get out of their field.
I don't like the bullshit tactics that the BSA uses, but I also don't think that anyone they stomp on is automatically on the side of the angels, either.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.