[Openfontlibrary] "The license for this font does not allow user modification"

[Dave Crossland]

Hi All,

Interesting to see the proprietary font world pushing harder and
harder in the wrong direction :-)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tiffany Wardle <tiffanywardle at mac.com>
Date: 11-Jul-2007 00:00
Subject: [ATypI] Disallowing Font Modification
To: ATypI List <members at atypi.org>


Recently a foundry owner told me that they think FontLab should not
allow fonts to be modified. I took the thought to Ted Harrison but
wondered if it would be something that FontLab was considering. But,
Ted told me, "We're trying not to get labeled as the font police."
Absolutely fair and understandable.

But he suggested another possibility.

> We're working to incorporate the EEULAA and personalization
> technology into the next generation of Fontlab products. A field
> already exists in the EEULAA for designating whether the font
> license allows modification or not. It is theoretically possible
> (although I'd have to see if Yuri would agree to this) to examine
> every font that is opened in a Fontlab product to see how this
> field is set. And to have certain things happen depending on what
> the software finds there. For instance, if the EEULAA says "no
> modification", then a message might appear that says "The license
> for this font does not allow user modification. Please contact the
> vendor to upgrade your license." and the font would not be opened.
> No key needed, just a new font with a new EEULAA. And there are, of
> course, infinite variations on this.

How many of you would use this?

Many of you do not allow font modification in your EULAs so I would
think that most of you would want to use this. If the end user
doesn't respect the license to begin with they'll find a hack
regardless, right? Or, would your implementing something like this
create even more piracy*?

Hopefully if I've misquoted Ted he will chime in with correction.

Regards,
Tiffany

*Piracy in the sense of simply disregarding your EULAs.

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-- 
Regards,
Dave