Re: Downloadable fonts and image replacement

David Woolley schreef:
> That's the effect of putting a TTF font on the web!  Anyone can download
> it and use it in any web site.

Well, I think that’s no different for PDF, what’s stopping you from 
extracting the original fonts from a PDF file (except that there may not 
be tools available at the moment to do that)?


>> bogus anyway, as for restricted use it doesn=E2=80=99t provide informatio=
>> n about=20
>> where it can be used, and the field can easily be changed as well. Also,=20
> 
> EOT does provide information on where it can be used; effectively the 
> proposal was to allow unrestricted fonts to be used without this mechanism - 
> you would still need to use something like EOT for level 2 or 3.

I suppose. But it’s easy to circumvent that protection, if you want.

Using a font that you didn’t pay for is illegal, DRM or no. So I really 
don’t see the need for DRM, it doesn’t actually help font authors to 
find illegal applications of their fonts more easily, and I sincerely 
doubt whether in a lawsuit they will have *more* right for compensation 
of unauthorised use of their work when DRM is present, than without.

It’s just that I don’t see a point in all kinds of protection measures 
when they can be broken easily by someone intent on using them 
illegally. For the purpose of making things more complicated, I’d say 
having them referenced in CSS files should be sufficient to scare away 
the layman user. For the purpose of someone who really wants to use them 
illegally, he is breaking the law by stealing, and the legal system is 
solid enough to take care of that.

So that’s why I think all kinds of semi-protections like using 
restricting site URLs and distribution levels is really useless and only 
making things needlessly difficult.

What would be useful is making a clear note in the specification text 
that most fonts (even the ones delivered with the user’s OS) have 
copyrights on them and may not be redistributed without permission. That 
should be sufficient warning.

WRT claiming ignorance, so I suppose I can also claim ignorance about 
the copyright laws when I copy that game from my neighbour? I don’t 
think that such an argument would hold. Violations of copyright by 
non-professionals is not where the money is anyway (contrary to e.g. 
distributing music, where there are some valid arguments for using DRM).

In any case, I really think this is something that the legal system 
should take care of and not the user agents, whose goal is to show the 
fonts, not protect the font authors.


~Grauw

-- 
Ushiko-san! Kimi wa doushite, Ushiko-san nan da!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Laurens Holst, student, university of Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Website: www.grauw.nl. Backbase employee; www.backbase.com.