RE: The unmentionable

Thursday, July 30, 2009 Thomas Phinney <tphinney@cal.berkeley.edu>:

>Even if it was possible to detect most illegitimate web usage, I'm not
>nearly as hopeful as you about enforcement.

Thomas, 

I think you wanted the word "compliance" but grabbed the word "enforcement",
instead. I'm sure you agree enforcement isn't something to be hopeful about.
It's a messy business that makes enemies. Compliance on the other hand,
well, hopefully most people will live up to the obligations they agree to
contractually.
What might help also, is that the authenticity of a font may become
important. Once web designers become aware of the problems they'll avoid by
using a quality font from a trusted source, I think they'll want to go to
those sources to get the latest version, uncorrupted, and virus-free.
Pricing will play a big part in that, of course.

Other than that, let's see... hmmm... ever see the play Waiting For Godot?
;)

Cheers,

rich


-----Original Message-----
From: www-font-request@w3.org [mailto:www-font-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of
Thomas Phinney
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 11:25 AM
To: Christopher Fynn
Cc: John Hudson; www-font@w3.org
Subject: Re: The unmentionable

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 5:35 AM, Christopher  Fynn<cfynn@gmx.net> wrote:
> On the other hand fonts on the web are used in public and, if proper
records are kept, it should be reasonably straight forward for font vendors
to determine whether that use is properly licensed or not.

Not necessarily. For any font that has at least two routes for sale
(say, direct and a resellter), with no sharing of customer records,
it's very hard to be sure. This is a *very* common case, not only for
big foundries, but for independents who both sell direct and say,
through MyFonts.

Now, if moving forward all fonts licensed for web use also have
customer-specific info in the font, and for some reason that info is
hard to forge, then *maybe* you are more correct than I imagine. But
probably not.

Even if it was possible to detect most illegitimate web usage, I'm not
nearly as hopeful as you about enforcement. Beyond sending an email,
enforcement is expensive and complex. Few font vendors/creators have
the time and money for doing much enforcement. Leastways, that's been
the history.

Regards,

T

Received on Thursday, 30 July 2009 16:43:55 UTC