----- Forwarded message from Bill Stewart <bill.stewartat_private> ----- From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewartat_private> Subject: Reg - Linotype copyright action on Adobe-format fonts To: cypherpunksat_private Cc: declanat_private Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 19:35:57 -0800 "ATM" is "Adobe Type Manager". Linotype is a big font house. Intellectual Property laws for fonts are normally even stranger than for regular material, but if any of these are in Postscript, they're also programs, so there may be DMCA issues, and there's obviously some contractual relationship with Adobe that lets them copyright implementations. (I have *no* idea if there's Dmitri Sklyarov-related material here, as in "Did Adobe do Something Bad, or was Someone Else careless", but it's entertaining speculation, at least in the absence of actual knowledge.) Does anybody know ATM implementation details? Adobe's web page describes ATM Light as a "Free font utility for viewing and printing PostScript fonts Adobe. Type Manager. (ATM.) Light is a system software component that automatically generates high-quality screen font bitmaps from the PostScript. outlines in Type 1 or OpenType. format." which implies that at least some ATM fonts are real Postscript. Fairly usable Fair Use reformatted excerpt from The Register's article follows. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23427.html Linotype gets heavy over free ATM font downloads By John Lettice - john.letticeat_private Posted: 17/12/2001 at 12:15 GMT German company Linotype Library GmbH is flexing its ATM font copyright muscles via 'cease and desist' letters with potential $30,000 legal tabs attached. The fonts in question do seem to be owned by Linotype (or to be strictly accurate, its parent company Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG), but are probably part of a batch that accidentally wandered into the shareware sector in the early 90s. The fonts are frequently found for download on OS/2 sites, and have tended to propagate via mirrors, with the assumption that they're shareware propagating along with them. This was the case for Ian Manners, who runs www.os2site.com, and who contacted The Register after receiving his letter from Linotype. .... What does seem clear is that Linotype is making heavy legal noises in order to clear the fonts off download sites. And strangely enough, the fonts themselves (Cascade, Flora, Frutiger, Helvetica, Isadora, Linotext, Linoscript, Optima, Palatino, Peignot, Present, Shelley and Univers), are currently on sale at Linotype Library's site. The fonts Ian was hosting complicate matters further, in that internally they have an Adobe copyright stamp in them. Adobe itself sells the fonts in question, and labels them as Linotype's trademark on its site. It seems fairly clear that the fonts are Linotype's property, and that even people offering cloned versions under the same names are going to be vulnerable to legal threats. From the Linotype letter, however, it doesn't seem to be the case that they're universally trademarked throughout the world, which could make actual legal action complicated. ----- End forwarded message ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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