Fonts allowed in a packaged file

[R C-R]

Just now, Lagarto said:

As is implied in the extract in Woswen's post, simply just providing a tool that allows copying of and easy access to "cloud fonts" meant to be used only on basis of activation is a violation of the license.

Nonsense. A licensing violation occurs only when someone actually does something that violates its terms. Simply providing a tool that makes that possible does not do that, any more than providing someone a hammer makes the tool provider responsible for anything the person using that hammer does with it.

As with any other tool, the tool user is responsible for how it is used, not the tool maker.

[Wosven]

In the first place, the Affinity apps shouldn't copy the fonts. That's simple.

If users want to use the same fonts on another computer, they'll have to get a subscription (or it should be a secondary computer of the same user).

Transtlation: APub users shoudln't even get those fonts on their computer via a package, unless they have a similar and active subscription that will provide the fonts.

 

18 minutes ago, R C-R said:

As with any other tool, the tool user is responsible for how it is used, not the tool maker.

 

So, should APub users sue Affinity once they are sued by some subscription fonts service ? 🙄

I just think this is an error in the package implementation that need to be corrected, not another convoluted way to complicate our lives.

 

But, trying to export (again) the original file, I get this warning about restricted fonts:

But the next step doesn't provide any way to disable easily any font to be copied, and certainly not to disable at once all the restricted ones:

 

From the previous discussion, it's not easy to even see those fonts in the package, since they are hidden files for some users.

[R C-R]

19 minutes ago, Wosven said:

So, should APub users sue Affinity once they are sued by some subscription fonts service ?

They could try but since Serif makes it clear it is up to the user not to violate any licensing restrictions, they would find it very difficult to get a favorable judgement.

26 minutes ago, Wosven said:

But, trying to export (again) the original file, I get this warning about restricted fonts:

In the Mac version using English I get this:

When I click the OK button, I get this:

That provides an option not to include fonts or images, so once again I stand firm in my belief that Serif has provided users both with an adequate warning about it being the user's responsibility to comply with any applicable copyright laws & licensing agreements and the necessary tools to do so.

It really is no different from a user's responsibility to comply with all applicable copyright laws & licensing agreements wherever & however they distribute any content, even if no tool that enables that included no explicit warning about that. It is not the responsibility of the tool provider.

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

A strange analogy. I have never heard of Microsoft or Apple being sued because they both provide web browsers which could/have been used to download pirated software.

Actually, I think there have been a few attempts to do that, but AFAIK very few of them ever made it to court & none of them ever won a judgement.

[MikeW]

8 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Actually, I think there have been a few attempts to do that, but AFAIK very few of them ever made it to court & none of them ever won a judgement.

Adobe has a long history of suing, and winning, its court battles. Including font rights. As have several smaller font foundries. Whether Adobe would bother is an unknown to me. But I could write my contacts at Adobe (as well as the foundry of the non-Adobe cloud fonts that were in that package. Adobe has a dutyy to them that people/companies do not violate their licensing...) and point them to this thread if y'all would like to hear/read their opinion on the matter.

To me, the best outcome would be that cloud fonts are not even listed and not packaged. Second best would be they are listed, but packaging for them disabled. One could argue that a third best option would be to show them while packaging with them disabled with the option for a user to override it on purpose. Again, these are my opinions...

[Wosven]

13 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

A strange analogy...

People tend to sue for all and nothing today... We all have fun stories about this, including ideas like "hot coffee, French fry or salad's leaf on the ground", etc. And that's only the funny ones. I'm sure there's sad ones too, and it could be if people loose their subscriptions to services needed for working. I suppose, if people use those services and other apps, that the Affinity apps are additional tools, not the main ones.

Do you think it would be good advertising if people can't work if their subscriptions account are closed, because the apps do what is expressly forbidden?

How would you feel if an app did something illegal without you knowing it, and you end up getting the blame, or problems? Depending of the damage and loss, it's possible there's compensations.

[Old Bruce]

Just to toss another 2¢ in here.... I am actually surprised that Adobe Cloud Fonts can be accessed and used by Affinity applications. Or that they can be used by any non Adobe Cloud application.

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Adobe has a long history of suing, and winning, its court battles.

I don't doubt that, but with that in mind doesn't it seem odd that Adobe apparently never has tried to sue Serif about or otherwise object to the font package options available in APub? If there were any valid legal grounds to do so, surely they would have done that by now.

[MikeW]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I don't doubt that, but with that in mind doesn't it seem odd that Adobe apparently never has tried to sue Serif about or otherwise object to the font package options available in APub? If there were any valid legal grounds to do so, surely they would have done that by now.

Whether they would bother, even if they believed there was legal grounds to, is up to them. Or to the makers of fonts licensed to them (though I believe they have a duty to protect the vendors they make agreements with). Packaging is something new to APub.

[MikeW]

And here's maybe a fun thought exercise...

Serif has a Adobe CC license. If they have packaged files in APub that uses Adobe (or other such cloud font vendors' fonts) in order to test the package function in APub, Serif has broken the law/license agreement they have with Adobe.

Fun to think about...(for me anyway)

[lacerto]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

As with any other tool, the tool user is responsible for how it is used, not the tool maker.

You do not seem to understand that accessing via code the location of a specific installation path already involves an intentional act ("attempt") so the violation is basically inbuilt. We can of course assume that Serif has never actually made the violation because they never executed (tested) the code, as that seems to happen in many other feature implementations I am not saying that this stands in the courtroom, but that the current implementation is unethical. That is of course just my opinion, and if you could not care less (make "nonsense" of any counter argument), or disagree, that's fine by me, but it is naive to make statements about "good faith". 

[Wosven]

2 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I am actually surprised that Adobe Cloud Fonts can be accessed and used by Affinity applications. Or that they can be used by any non Adobe Cloud application.

It's a fonts service, not specifically for Adobe's apps. And the EULA don't mention specifically Adobe's apps.

Requirements for using Adobe cloud fonts:

https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/system-subscription-requirements.html

And:

https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2020/04/23/20-creative-ways-to-use-adobe-fonts-you-may-have-missed

Quote

2. Third Party Apps: access Adobe Fonts in all your desktop software

Adobe Fonts is a Creative Cloud service, but did you know that you can also use the fonts in other software like Microsoft Office and Keynote? They’ll appear in your font menus just like the fonts you have installed on your computer, so you can make the most of your Creative Cloud subscription.

 

[Wosven]

9 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I'm not sure that I would get the blame in that case. There is usually the concept of mens rea. If I don't know about something I can't possibly be guilty of having an intent attached to it. That is not the same thing 'ignorance is no defence'. 

All of this is rethorical, but I'm sure that once you've lost the ability to do your work, and your clients, and need to pay the lawyers... you're happy few years later to not get the blame.

I'm fond of justice too, but let's get realistic, to avoid the earthen pot against the iron pot, it's best for the packaging to not include the hidden fonts. Especially after this long discussion, since it's now public.

[R C-R]

28 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

You do not seem to understand that accessing via code the location of a specific installation path already involves an intentional act ("attempt") so the violation is basically inbuilt.

The ability to access that path via code is built into the OS itself, so by that logic this must mean the OS as well as any app that permits that already involves an intentional act of violation of some sort. Good luck making a legal case based on that!

[lacerto]

15 minutes ago, R C-R said:

The ability to access that path via code is built into the OS itself, so by that logic this must mean the OS as well as any app that permits that already involves an intentional act of violation of some sort. Good luck making a legal case based on that!

No, as mentioned, the path must be known, there is no API (at least on Windows) to get the path based on installed font so cloud fonts cannot be "accidentally" copied. A closer analogy would be the one made by another poster in this thread using an argument about this being a bit same as if browser creators were sued because their apps are used to access pirated software. Serif provides both the tool and the path, and I think that browsers providing inbuilt paths would make creators somehow involved. 

[Wosven]

It's an important issue, and at this point it would be nice to have a statment from a moderator or event the dev team.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Wosven said:

How would you feel if an app did something illegal without you knowing it, and you end up getting the blame, or problems?

But haven't we already established that APub includes a hard to miss warning about including restricted fonts and/or copyrighted content in *.afpackage files? Besides, don't the ToU for almost all apps explicitly prohibit using them to infringe on anybody's intellectual property rights?

[Wosven]

6 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

A closer analogy would be the one made by another poster in this thread using an argument about this being a bit same if browser creators were sued because thir apps are used to access pirated software. Serif provides both the tool and the path, and I think that browsers providing inbuilt paths would make creators somehow involved. 

It's a little bit different for some tools that can be use in a legal way to do a private and allowed copy, for example.

Accessing softwares of every kind, visibility of copyrighted material isn't forbidden. It's the way you use it that problematic.

 

But this problem is about the apps copying and packaging fonts when it's not allowed. There's an EULA for users, I'm wondering if there's a one for apps using the fonts...

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

No, as mentioned, the path must be known, there is no API (at least on Windows) to get the path based on installed font so cloud fonts cannot by "accidentally" copied.

I don't understand what do you mean by that. As I have mentioned more than once now, there is a keyboard shortcut built into all recent versions of the macOS to show hidden files in Finder windows, so if I use it I can clearly see exactly where the normally hidden fonts in an *.afpackage file are located. For example, all the normally hidden otf files in the ExampleDocument package are at path /Users/{my user acct home folder}/Desktop/ExampleDocument/Fonts/ because I placed the unzipped package folder on my Mac's desktop.

Are you saying there is nothing like that built into Windows?

[Wosven]

14 minutes ago, R C-R said:

But haven't we already established that APub includes a hard to miss warning about including restricted fonts and/or copyrighted content in *.afpackage files? Besides, don't the ToU for almost all apps explicitly prohibit using them to infringe on anybody's intellectual property rights?

But it force you to do illegal stuff to archive or give your design to another coworker... don't you call it being between a rock and a hard place?

And there's no way to avoid packaging those fonts.

[Wosven]

7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Are you saying there is nothing like that built into Windows?

There's a option to display hidden files, but since most users aren't tech savy, it's another way of being between a rock and a hard place... allowing them to view and destroy, move those hidden files or do whatever strange idea get in their mind...

 

I'm wondering how many package files people have done until today... and how many will have to correct/redo them simply to stay in legal terms…

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, Wosven said:

And there's no way to avoid packaging those fonts.

What do you mean? Don't you have the two options not to include fonts and/or images in *.afpackage files like I showed in the second screenshot in this post above? Sure, for both it is all or nothing but there is nothing forcing users to leave those boxes checked.

[Old Bruce]

4 minutes ago, Wosven said:

And there's no way to avoid packaging those fonts.

Yes there is, remove them from the package. Here is the first thing I see when I go to package a Publisher document which contains restricted fonts:

It is up to me. 

[Wosven]

 

8 minutes ago, R C-R said:

What do you mean? Don't you have the two options not to include fonts and/or images in *.afpackage files like I showed in the second screenshot in this post above? Sure, for both it is all or nothing but there is nothing forcing users to leave those boxes checked.

  

3 hours ago, Wosven said:

But, trying to export (again) the original file, I get this warning about restricted fonts:

But the next step doesn't provide any way to disable easily any font to be copied, and certainly not to disable at once all the restricted ones:

 

 

It's all or nothing, but if we decide to package some of the fonts, it's because we need to. We simply don't want the restricted ones to be packaged.

 

[lacerto]

29 minutes ago, Wosven said:

Accessing softwares of every kind, visibility of copyrighted material isn't forbidden. It's the way you use it that problematic.

 

I think that whether something can be considered as a criminal act (and sued), or "just" a violation of a license agreement are two different things. As you earlier cited Adobe Fonts license agreement:

Quote

(7) attempting to copy, move, or remove Licensed Fonts from a Web Project, or from the locations or folders on your
Computer where we have installed such Licensed Fonts, or otherwise attempting to access or use the Licensed Fonts other
than by subscribing directly to the Service using the means we provide for such purposes;

This is in many ways problematic condition, but it is clear that the code implemented by Serif is a tool to specifically copy the fonts from their (hidden) install location in purpose of accessing them without having a subscription and activation. IMO it is unethical but it is the user who violates the license conditions which they have accepted (even if the violation itself might have been made inadvertently).