- From: Bill Hill <billhill@microsoft.com>
- Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 09:44:31 -0700
- To: "'www-font@w3.org'" <www-font@w3.org>, "'Bill McCoy'" <mccoy@mv.us.adobe.com>
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