Re: CSS3 @font-face / EOT Fonts - new compromise proposal

> But whether it's access control, root strings, or even font file
> obfuscation, browser creators pretty safe, as the browser is not
> "primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a
> technological measure that effectively controls access to a work," has
> lots of other commercially significant purposes or uses, and wouldn't be
> marketed as a circumvention mechanism. See Section 1201(a)(2).
> 
> BTW, to get to one underlying concern: has your, or anybody's, lawyer
> actually expressed the opinion that having a third party post a patch to
> a browser that gave the browser a circumvention capability would create
> a problem for the browser vendor under the DMCA? Because even if it
> happened, I am not getting why it would be an issue, based on 1201(a)(2).

That's something we're investigating, we're not clear on this either. 
At this point it's simply a source of concern.  For open source projects
like Mozilla there's a whole realm of subprojects that also use Mozilla
code, often using shared infrastructure, and lines of responsibility and
control are sometimes fuzzy.  

>From http://chillingeffects.org/anticircumvention/faq.cgi

  Question: What does it mean to distribute circumvention tools?

  Answer: Section 1201(a)(2) defines distribution as the "manufacture,
  import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic" of
  circumvention tools. This definition can be interpreted extremely
  broadly as evident in the court's analysis in the DVD encryption
  Universal v. Corley case. In its decision, the court considered not
  only making the source code of a program for free a type of
  distribution, but also found that merely linking to a web site
  containing illegal tools can constitute "trafficking."

It's this broad type of interpretation that causes concern.

John Daggett
Mozilla Japan

Received on Tuesday, 11 November 2008 06:54:02 UTC