Re: The other party in all this

John Daggett wrote:

> My guess is that you already know this but I think the word "protect"
> is used a lot by font designers and vendors so I think it's important to
> point out that none of the formats under discussion really "protects" font
> data in way that things like iTunes "protects" DRM-ed music.  All the
> formats under discussion (EOT, EOT-lite, Ascender's proposal, ZOT) are
> merely attempts to create a small fence, to make it more evident when a
> font is being used in a unlicensed way.

Acknowledged.

> Just as with images or Javascript code on a site, this boils down to a
> decision by your client as to how best to balance the possibility of
> "exploitation" of site assets with the increased functionality these
> assets bring to the site.  Someone may try and sell you on one format or
> another as being a format that "protects" your assets but for any of the
> formats under discussion, your font data will always be one step away
> from exploitation by someone with the right tool.

Also acknowledged.

> If user agents implement same-origin restrictions on fonts and support
> some form of compressed data format for TrueType/OpenType fonts, simple
> hot-linking won't work and the fonts won't be usable as normal desktop
> fonts, at least initially.  If font vendors include per-sale information
> identifying the site for which a font is licensed in the font metadata,
> detecting unlicensed usage on other sites should be easy to identify by
> an automated process.  Neither of these are ironclad but should at least
> prevent casual misuse.

Yes. It isn't the level of protection I'd like to see, but it is a level 
that I find an acceptable minimum. Presuming that there are enough 
people on the browser side who see it as an acceptable maximum, I think 
this is a basis for consensus.

John Hudson

Received on Monday, 6 July 2009 03:21:42 UTC