RE: [dvd-discuss] How many bits is a technical protection measure?

[Richard Hartman <hartman(at)onetouch.com>]

Ain't that always the way?  HTML was supposed
to be a platform-independant markup language.  
The tags designated elements at a conceptual
level (heading level 1, title, paragraph,
list item, etc.) and the program reading the
file would render the element in whichever
way it saw fit (or was capable of).  Then they
decided to add in all the "real" formatting
... colors, fonts ... and with "DHTML" even
positioning of elements ... in the end, all
of the micro-management of format information
negates the whole original idea of marking
up by content as opposed to appearance.

Same deal here.  PDF was supposed to be
portable, but if you use a font you can't
distribute with the document, just how
portable is it?

-- 
-Richard M. Hartman
hartman@onetouch.com

186,000 mi./sec ... not just a good idea, it's the LAW!


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Seppanen [mailto:eds@reric.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 1:32 PM
> To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] How many bits is a technical protection
> measure?
> 
> 
> On Tue, Apr 23, 2002 at 10:44:02AM -0400, Scott A Crosby wrote:
> > Remember we were having discussions as to whether or not a 
> single bit flag
> > was an 'effective technical protection measure'.. Well, it 
> seems that at
> > least one organization believes that two bytes is a 
> protection measure.
> > 
> > True Type Fonts have a couple of flags that indicate in 
> what and how they
> > may be embedded into a document. Most programs for editing 
> them set those
> > flags to 'not embeddable'.
> > 
> > So, a lounge-rat here wrote a program that would reset 
> those flags to
> > allow him to mark his fonts as embeddable.. He has recieved a DMCA
> > takedown letter (which is on its way to 
> ChillingEffects.org) from a font
> > house ordering him to remove the program.
> 
> Weird coincidence: I just needed this program an hour ago.  I 
> created a 
> document with some weird fonts that are available as freeware 
> over the 
> net.  Then I tried to create a PDF from my document using Acrobat 
> Distiller, which said:
> 
> %%[ Warning: Concielian cannot be embedded due to licensing 
> restrictions.]%%
> %%[ Warning: ConcielianJet cannot be embedded due to licensing 
> restrictions.]%%
> %%[ Warning: DieHund cannot be embedded due to licensing 
> restrictions.]%%
> %%[ Warning: NeverSayDie cannot be embedded due to licensing 
> restrictions.]%%
> %%[ Warning: Obliviousfont cannot be embedded due to licensing 
> restrictions.]%%
> 
> The program mentioned allowed me to use these fonts in my PDF file.  
> Otherwise, the guy I wanted to send this document to would have to 
> download the wierd fonts too, which is kinda what I was 
> trying to avoid 
> by using PDF (_Portable_ Document Format).
> 
> Eric
>