The two-edged nature of the DMCA

The two-edged nature of the DMCA

Posted Sep 6, 2002 9:51 UTC (Fri) by beejaybee (guest, #1581)
In reply to: The two-edged nature of the DMCA by giraffedata
Parent article: The two-edged nature of the DMCA

> What if a separate contract says, "no, go ahead and embed"?

There are serious (non-DMCA-related) issues here. If you have that contract then you should have a _private_ (not released to the public) tool to enable you to do the job. Also, if you allow your font to be embedded in a file which users can download, surely you're giving your IP away ... Joe Public can extract the font info from the PDF file with an ordinary text editor, flip the "don't embed" bits & make free with it, without having to execute a copy of the alleged circumvention device "Acrobat", or anything else with any connection to its author.

This sort of proves that DMCA is irrelevant to this particular case, unless posession of a simple text editor (or development tools sufficient to create one) is to be regarded as posession of a circumvention tool - which makes us all criminals & proves just how ridiculous DMCA is.

Once again - the problem with copyright violation is in the mind of the person who sets out to make illegal copies of copyright material, not in any technology used to do the actual copying. This is the principle that should be enshrined in law; it would strike down the stupid clauses which form the objectionable parts of the DMCA, and end all the arguments relating to RIAA vs music sharing services, etc, etc.

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