Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ns-mx!iowasp!deimos.cis.ksu.edu!rutgers!bellcore!spectral!sjs
From: sjs@spectral.ctt.bellcore.com (Stan Switzer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: Font Copyright Info
Message-ID: <21334@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Date: 27 Mar 90 13:43:34 GMT
References: <2027@adobe.UUCP> <1117@chinacat.Unicom.COM>
Sender: news@bellcore.bellcore.com
Reply-To: sjs@bellcore.com (Stan Switzer)
Organization: Bellcore
Lines: 22

In article <1117@chinacat.Unicom.COM> woody@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Woody Baker @ Eagle Signal) writes:
> "Copyright infringement if a user of the Adobe typeface program converts
> the program to Royal or folio format and redistributes it"
> 
> How would this be infringement.  It seems that the entire program would
> have to be re-written in order to do this, and that would make it an original
> work?

It seems to me that Adobe is "pushing the envelope" here.  What
they've done is exactly analogous to copyrighting a recipe for chicken
soup.  The only thing that is protected is the particular wording of
the recipe.  Anyone who wants to word it differently can rewrite the
recipe with the exact same ingredients.

On the other hand, to copy the program literally and redistribute it
would be a violation of copyright, and to convert the font to some
other format for redistribution would be prohibited by the user's
license agreement.  Adobe's bases are already well covered.  I don't
understand why they want to make this copyright business seem more
important than it really is.

Stan Switzer  sjs@bellcore.com