RE: Re[2]: pixel fonts

Excellent mail, Bill!
This is the most rational summary I've yet seen of the issues.
The problems of IPR for fonts are, as you point out, not much different to 
the problems of IPR for other "creative works" on the Net, such as 
photographs and graphics, and in fact, the font embedding scheme which we 
are proposing gives greater protection to fonts than exists today for other 
creative works.
Only one area of Bill's mail with which I'd take issue. The line between 
"electronic document" and "print document" is already blurring, and will 
become more blurred as time goes on, and I don't think that trying to keep 
them separate is going to work.
The decision on where to read the document - on-screen, or on paper - will 
more and more be made by the reader.
Designers will have to get used to fact that their task is changing, from 
static design - in which you can predict the exact size and resolution of 
the output device (print) - to dynamic design which might be printed, or 
read on-screen in a variety of resolutions and screen sizes. Designing for 
this dynamic environment will be a real challenge, but there are exciting 
opportunities ahead.
At Microsoft, we've been concerned about the IP protection of fonts ever 
since we started embedding them in Word documents a few years ago. We 
produced our current embedding scheme in consultation with major font 
vendors. And we are working to add further levels of security related to 
font embedding on the Internet.
bill

----------
From:  Bill McCoy[SMTP:mccoy@mv.us.adobe.com]
Sent:  Sunday, August 11, 1996 7:24 AM
To:  www-font@w3.org
Cc:  mccoy@mv.us.adobe.com
Subject:  Re: Re[2]: pixel fonts

John Hudson, Tiro TypeWorks writes:

>As professional type designers, neither Erik nor I are
>keen on seeing our fonts being shot around the world in a variety of
>insecure document formats (of which Acrobat is definitely an example). 
The
>current FONT-FACE= tag is not a problem, as it relies on the font in
>question being present on the end-user's system. Systems which conspire 
to
>put that font on the end-user's system so they can view and print a given
>website or electronic document are a problem, and a represent a serious
>threat to type designers' livelihoods.

>My own idea for a solution is to give designers and foundries greater
>control over the ways in which their fonts can be used (i.e. control 
within
>font format technology), and modify existing payment and distribution 
models
>to reflect that control...

In another message he writes:

>This puts type designers in the uncomfortable position
>of explaining to their clients that the typeface they have just invested
>thousands of dollars in cannot be technically protected from piracy and
>that, if they want to protect their property, they can expect further 
major
>investment in legal fees, monitoring costs, etc..

I think it's pretty obvious that fonts are one instance of a data type 
which
contains intellectual property and thus "wants" protection. But, I think
it's equally obvious that IP in general is not yet being protected on the
net and that this isn't a disaster. E.g.,

"As professional graphic artists, neither Joe nor I are
 keen on seeing our illustrations being shot around the world in a variety
 of insecure formats (of which JPEG and GIF are definitely examples)."

"This puts graphic designers in the uncomfortable position
of explaining to their clients that the artwork they have just invested
thousands of dollars in cannot be technically protected from piracy and
that, if they want to protect their property, they can expect further 
major
investment in legal fees, monitoring costs, etc.."

Yes of course the world needs IP protection mechanisms for Web resources.
And I wholeheartedly agree with John that "Designers who intend their 
fonts
to be used
primarily for print media applications should be able to disable the font 
in
such a way that it cannot be used in electronic documents" (though I would
qualify that as "cannot be *easily* or *inadvertently* used").

However, I do not think that the IP needs of type designers differ that
greatly from the needs of other creators of graphical and textual
information. For type designers that are nervous about fonts being shot
around the world, perhaps you can take some comfort in the fact that the
proliferation of trivially rip-offable GIF and JPEG files has not led to a
decrease in sales of clip-art libraries nor to decrease in demand for
graphic design for the Web: quite the opposite! It has given a much larger
user base a taste of the possibilities, and most people are, given an
opportunity, honest. So the benefits of greatly increased exposure to
potential (honest) customers should far outweigh the costs of the
hypothetical lost revenue from increased piracy. I say "hypothetical"
because piracy in most instances is performed by those who would not
otherwise be paying customers anyway.

And, though I agree the interests of print-centric type designers are
different than the interests of designers working with media primarily
intended for online viewing, electronic documents are becoming critical to
prepress/print workflows. The printing paradigm is shifting to demand
printing, digital presses, etc., so there's really no crisp dividing line.

So, I believe that it is in the interests of all type foundries to accept
the reality that our work has been pretty much rip-offable all the while,
and that although this will be even more true with Web fonts, it will in 
the
final analysis be a net win.  Holding up use of Web fonts until we have IP
protection, or even worse trying to implement a font-specific IP 
protection
mechanism before the Web community has sorted out the general IP 
protection,
payment, and distribution issues, would be very shortsighted.

Adobe has the largest aftermarket font business, and the entire Adobe Type
Library is licensed under terms which permit embedding in documents. Thus 
we
are putting 10s of millions of dollars of revenue on the line on this
proposition that we will grow our business and sell more type by letting
users get a taste of documents and media that really show-off high-quality
type, rather than bitmaps or imitations. So far, so good. But to really 
make
this a success, I think the type industry as a whole needs to step up, 
post
haste, to these new challenges of professional type in electronic media. 
We
need to focus on delivering quality, performance, minimizing bandwidth... 
a
host of issues. Intellectual property is definitely one of these issues, 
but
to spend the next 18 months squabbling over it, would really be missing 
the
boat.

--Bill




Bill McCoy
Adobe Systems Incorporated
mccoy@adobe.com
(206) 470-7449

Received on Monday, 12 August 1996 12:45:04 UTC