#ADOBE COPYRIGHTS
21 messages in this thread
Someone recently made an iquiry about the Adobe copyright notice found in
many fonts that appear to be freely distributable (those terms are not
mutually exclusive)… I ran across the following file in the DTP forum Lib
16… I hope it addresses some of your questions.
Filename size description
MPP322.TXT 7K Article on Adobe's anti-piracy program
Michael
….from the north coast (go Cavs!)
Michael,
I think I was the guy asking about the copyright problems, I was
enquiring for a friend about setting up a PD/Shareware Type One library in
the U.K.
I will download that txt file and pass it on, I have put messages on the
Adobe forum but have had no definative answers at all. From what I can tell
there is no easy way of telling if a font is PD/Shareware/Freeware co even
Copyrighted just by looking in the .PFB or .AFM files.
A couple of things that have come to light as he has collected fonts
from all over the place is that the following type message appears in some
fonts…
"XXXXFont is a trademark of YYYY Company"
Presumably a trademark is not a copyright.
He also purchased $600 worth of Softlogik fonts for his own DTP business
which he says contain no Copyright message at all. I am not suggesting he
is about to release these in a PD collection but how can anyone really know
if a font has any copyright. I was hoping Michael from SoftLogik may be
able to tell me how they determine what a font is before it goes on the SL
BBS.
Regards
Paul
Paul
Plymouth,England
Paul,
I find it remarkable that the fonts your friend purchased from SL (Image
Club stuff?) contained no copyright notice… did the disks come with a
license for use?
I am under the following impressions:
1) Copyrighted materials may be freely distributed unless the rights to
that distribution are retained by the copyright holder.
2) A product sold with a license, specifies exactly what you may or may not
do with it.
Presumably, if the fonts your friend purchased from SL contained no license
information, than he acyually pruchased the fonts and not simply a license
to use them. The sounds like an error on the part of SL or Image Club. I
know that Mike (SL) is in the process of moving, but I sure hope he
addresses this issue quickly. Serious damage could be done very quickly if
what they intended to be a commercially released licensed product is being
shipped simply as freely distrubutable copyrightted material.
BTW, let me know what the Adobe article has to say.
Michael
….from the north coast (go Cavs!)
Michael,
Copyrighted materials may NOT be freely distributed without the
express permission of the copyright holder.
Don
Don,
Then I'm confused. For example, many of the files in the libs here contain
copyright notices. Many say the are freely distributable in their
description, and many make no mention of permission at all. With reagrd to
the issue at hand, the fonts in question contain copyright notices right in
the file, but say nothing about being frely distributable. How are we to
know what is freely distributable and what is not?
Michael
….from the north coast (go Cavs!)
Michael,
The "freely distributable" lines in uploads are put there by the
authors or with the author's permission. Thus, they properly follow
copyright law…no distribution without the author's permission…and in
this case, the author (or owner of the copyright) gave permission.
If you have files that contain copyright notices, yet within the
distribution there is no notification that the copyright holder has given
their permission to distribute the files…then those files may not be
distributed.
For example, anything I write and distribute, I embed a copyright
notice in it. But I also enclose a readme file that contains my permission
to freely distribute the file, but not to sell it or include it in a
commercial program and only so long as the readme file is included with the
distribution.
That is my "license" terms. All other rights remain with me.
FYI, all programs are copyrighted, with or without a copyright
notice,
Don
Don,
If the author specificly says the program is public domain then all
copyright claims are void as are any stipulations on distribution,
reselling, etc.
-sja
Steve,
Copyright and Public Domain are mutually exclusive.
As you noted, if you place something in the Public Domain…you
lose all your copyright protection…thus any notice claiming copyright has
0 effect.
Yes, I know that the original author can attempt to withdraw an
item from the public domain and reinstate their copyright rights…but I've
never heard of it actually being done…nor do I suspect realistically that
it can be done.
Don
Don,
I was referring to your last line, "FYI, all programs are copyrighted, with
or without a copyright notice…" — true unless the PD statement is made,
then it's "up for grabs".
Steve,
Ah…ok. You're right, that should have all programs are
copyrighted unless the author places it in the public domain…
Don
From what I have learned, PostScript fonts CAN be copywritten simply
because they are computer programs (PostScript being an interpretive
language) not data files. The actual outlines cannot be copywritten, but
the method of describin them can. That doesn't mean that everyone DOESN'T
steal them! Gary
e
Gary,
Yes….I'd agree with that.
Don
Yes Michael this is exactly the point I am trying (in my rather
disjointed approach) to make.
If all the fonts available here are supposed to either PD/Shareware or
copyrighted but redistrubutable with the permission then why is'nt it made
clear exactly what it is?. How do the Sysops check these fonts out?.
Utopia is the only one (witha copyright in the AFM) I can think of that
carries a release notice from Adobe.
Paul
Plymouth,England
I'm not sure if our Typeface Library (ImageClub) fonts have copyright
notices in them. However, not putting a copyright notice in a font file
doesn't diminish the rights of the copyright holder. The copyright is
stated in the manual accompaning the fonts and gives the purchase no rights
whatsoever to distribute our fonts in any form. Copyright notices are
normally placed in font files simply to ensure that if someone does
distribute them, those who pick them up will see that they are copyrighted
and will discontinue use of them.
The fonts in the FONTS section of the Soft-Logik BBS are PD or shareware
fonts. These are not part of our Typeface Library which are only
distributed by sales and dealers. The fonts on the BBS are uploaded by
PageStream users and verified by us to ensure they are PD. We allow them on
the board simply as a service to our users, nothing more. We are not
responsible for them and do not distribute them.
Michael Soft-Logik Publishing Corporation
Michael,
Thanks very much for the very positive statement given, I will
pass your message on.
Just better re-iterate that my friend has no intention of breaking any
copyrights either in law or on moral grounds, but in the process of trying
to set this library up he has found it extremely difficult to determine
what is and is'nt a PD/Shareware font. After looking at fonts that have
been supplied by other PD libraries and found many fonts with copyright
notices he decided he had better try and find out more about it before he
distributed them himself.
He has been in touch with F.A.S.T (federation against software theft) but
quite franky they could'nt really give him much advice which is why I
decided to ask here for him, I knew I would get a reaction ;-).
You say that SL verify any fonts on the BBS but how?….if you could tell
me how they are verified perhaps he could use the same method.
Regards
Paul
Paul
Plymouth,England
One suggestion I was expecting to hear hasn't come up yet: The Adobe fonts,
and other PS fonts are PS programs to render data which is included. It
may be that the copyright notice is meant to apply to the postscript header
code in the font, implying that you shouldn't break the font apart, use
their header to render your own characters… this may be completely off,
but things like freehand files all include a huge "prologue" of PS drawing
functions which the actual art part references. Taking these functions and
using them for the PS output section of ArnieDraw300xpqz v1.0 would be
illegal, while distributing the freehand map of the US you created which
actually contains all those routines is OK… now that we're all even more
confused, where's that lawyer 😮
Michael,
The font sets that he has are Designer, Publisher, Newsletter and
one other that I can't remember, which all came from SL. He tells me that
nowhere can he find any copyright messages either in .AFM's .PFB's or the
manual. The one message that is there only refers the reproduction of the
manual!.
The same goes for some of the Image Club fonts, he specified "Chrome
Bumper" as being one of the unsure ones.
BTW…the Adobe text files addresses the issue of Adobe's 20% reward (20%
of what?) system for the exposition of font pirates. It also tries to
discuss the licensing problems etc. Apparently as it stands if you send a
file to a bureau that contains a downloaded font (which you legally have
the right to use) then the bureau must also have a license to print it!, if
they do not then it falls foul of Adobe's anti-pirate policy.
Seems to me like a no win situation for the end user.
Paul
Plymouth,England
Paul,
Thanks for the info,
Very perplexing.
Michael
….from the north coast (go Cavs!)
There is no copyright notice in the IC font manual. (My previous post was
in error.) It was left out by accident, but once again, the fact that there
is no copyright notice does not diminish our copyright on the fonts. For
example, PageStream is a registered trademark of Soft-Logik. We place the
little (R) symbol by it most of the time to help protect our trademark, but
if we don't, it doesn't give others the right to use it just because it's
not there.
If it makes you happy, I'll put together a formidable legal agreement with
a seal which you must break to access the disks and give it to shipping for
future product shipments. (I've never read one of those in my life, but
they are impressive!) 😉
None, let me repeat NONE, of the Soft-Logik Typeface Library (ImageClub)
fonts are PD. They are COMMERCIAL fonts for which we pay a hefty license,
and any attempt to distribute them will result in lawsuits from Soft-Logik,
ImageClub and the SPA (of which we are a paid up and active member).
Michael Soft-Logik Publishing Corporation
Fonts can not be copyrighted. Font names can be trade marked, but the
fonts themselves can not be copyrighted. I checked on this a few years
ago, and participated with a discussion about this in comp.fonts on USENET
a few months ago. (The discussion even made it to the legal forum here).
The copyright law basically states that fonts themselves are too much of a
basic building block to be able to copyright them. If you're interested in
seeing the section of the law that talks about this, I'll try and dig it up
for you.
Now, I don't think this prohibits copyrighting a collection of fonts (the
collection being copyrighted, not the fonts themselves), but I'm not
certain of that. Needless to say, copying a company's fonts and then
reselling them is a pretty slimy thing to do, but people have done it
before.
Last I heard, Adobe is lobbying really hard to have the copyright law
changed.
Steve