Spam.

You've left out the line directly preceding Adobe's copyright line, which is what Adobe's copyright notice refers to, not the font dict that follows, which includes it's own copyright notice.

Fascinatingly boring.

If this is accurate, I would think it would be difficult to prove fraudulent intent regarding what amounts to a coding bug.

Mark Simonson:

> You’ve left out the line directly preceding Adobe’s copyright line, which is what Adobe’s copyright notice refers to

A copyright year of 2525 cannot refer to any existing copyrighted work.

Whatever, but it has nothing to do with the copyright year of the embedded fonts, which you seem to be claiming.

Whether it was Uli's point or not, to satisfy § 506 c of Title 17, you need (1) a false copyright notice + (2) knowledge that the copyright notice is false + (3) fraudulent intent.

There are many ways in which a notice can be false. The attribution could be correct, for example, but the year could be wrong (as it is in this case). However, absent a showing that Adobe knows about the falseness of this notice, OR absent a showing of fraudulent intent, the requisites of that $2,500 criminal fine would not be satisfied.

Uli seems to be saying that Adobe is claiming copyright ownership of the embedded fonts, and that the copyright year it uses is dynamically set to whatever date the user's computer's clock is set to.

The Adobe copyright appears to refer to the PostScript code that embeds the font. That code is generated at the time you export or save as a .ps file. It's not actually part of the PDF. The same thing happens when you do "print to PostScript" on any document using Adobe's print driver. Whether this dynamically generated copyright notice is a false claim or not, I think probably not since it applies to dynamically generated PostScript code.

My point is that the Adobe copyright claim(s) in a .ps file that Uli is calling attention to are not referring to the embedded fonts, and that Uli has either deliberately or through ignorance taken PostScript code out of context in his examples, leaving out a very relevant line of code just before the Adobe copyright notice.

Mark Simonson:

I looked at the PS file in more detail:

The Font Bureau PDF file FB_David_Berlow_Specimens.pdf has exactly 80 pages, and if I set the date of my PC e.g. to the year 2037 and dump the entire 80-page PDF file to a PS file, this PS file will contain exactly 4883 (four thousand eight hundred and eighty-three) copyright lines, i.e. 61 copyright lines per PDF page, with always the same wording:

"Copyright 2037 Adobe System Incorporated"

Since ONE copyright line refers to ONE copyrighted work, this means that Adobe System Incorporated claims that this PS file contains 4883 copyrighted works owned by Adobe System Incorporated.

By these thousands of "copyright 2037" notices embedded into this PS file, Adobe System Incorporated wants to make believe that it is the copyright owner of thousands of copyrighted works, which had been created (past tense) in the year 2037 (future tense).

From the psychiatric point of view, this is highly interesting: I guess, if a lawyer or a legal adviser at Adobe System Incorporated wrote a book, it would consist of nothing but thousands of copyright notices, i.e. 61 copyright lines per printed book page.

Yes, the notices are false. The dates of first publication are, because they are being dynamically created, often incorrect. This alone is enough to render the notices false.

"Copyright 2525 Hubert Q. Fake."

That's a false notice, whether it is affixed 61 times a page to a copyrighted work the rights of which are not held by Hubert Q. Fake, or whether affixed to Hubert Q. Fake's autobiography, first published in the year 2524. We'll have to wait until 2525 to see if it can possibly be made valid.

But unless Hubert Q. Fake was aware that those notices were false when he affixed them AND did so with fraudulent intent, the conditions of § 506 c have not been met.

What Uli is demonstrating is (1) a computer bug, and (2) lacks a showing of fraudulent intent.

Good grief, Uli. You're hopeless. I've wasted enough time on this. Best of luck to you.

Ehague:

> But unless Hubert Q. Fake was aware that those notices were false when he affixed them AND did so with fraudulent intent, the conditions of § 506 c have not been met.

If you open a PS file of a lyrics PDF and read

The seed ye sow another reaps
Copyright 2525 Adobe System Incorporated
The wealth ye find another keeps
Copyright 2525 Adobe System Incorporated
The robes ye weave another wears
Copyright 2525 Adobe System Incorporated
The arms ye forge another bears
Copyright 2525 Adobe System Incorporated

the question of fraudulent intent is no longer important. Rather, one is inclined to think that the Adobe managers and Adobe lawyers, who instructed Adobe programmers to insert thousands and thousands of copyright notices into PS printer files are mentally disordered suffering from what could be called a pathological copyright notice echolalia.

If a tree falls in the woods in 2525...

Indeed... those these trollings are sometimes the closest I can get to a good, old-fashioned font IP law debate.

There was a time when I thought that Uli was honest, if misguided. But then I noticed too many things like this.

T

Thomas Phinney:

> I thought that Uli was honest

If you think that I told a lie by saying that the PS printer file contains exactly 4883 copyright lines with a future year, as specified above, e.g. with the copyright year 2037, you may download this PS file:

www.sanskritweb.net/temporary/FB_David_Berlow_Specimens.ps

You will see that it contains exactly 4883 lines with the future year 2037:

Copyright 2037 Adobe System Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Well, you certainly lied to Adobe's software by setting the date on your computer incorrectly. :)

Actually, I wasn't thinking you lied, but rather that you were less than completely honest, in quoting the copyright notices out of context, and ignoring what they were actually claiming copyright on and implying Adobe was claiming copyright on third party fonts... as pointed out by Mark Simonson in the third post of this thread.

Cheers,

T

Thomas Phinney:

You want to camouflage the fact that Adobe System Incorporated perverts the copyright law by inserting thousands of copyright notices into PDF and PS files.

1.

Well, you certainly lied to Adobe’s software by setting the date on your computer incorrectly. :)

You ignore that I started this thread by saying "Today’s date is 16th December 2009", and saying "Adobe inserted the copyright year 2009, although the PDF file was created in 2008".

2.

Actually, I wasn’t thinking you lied, but rather that you were less than completely honest, in quoting the copyright notices out of context, and ignoring what they were actually claiming copyright on and implying Adobe was claiming copyright on third party fonts... as pointed out by Mark Simonson in the third post of this thread.

You did not download the file FB_David_Berlow_Specimens.ps, nor did you examine the four thousand eight hundred eighty three copyright notices, nor did you disclose the names of the Adobe managers, who instructed subordinate Adobe programmers to insert thousands of copyright notices into PDF and PS files thus making dimwitted court judges believe that Adobe System Incorporated is the copyright owner of thousands of copyrighted works.

>.... insert thousands of copyright notices into PDF and PS files thus making dimwitted court judges...

Past tense? Show me one judge who believed this techno-psycho babble.

Jheers!

> Past tense? Show me one judge who believed this techno-psycho babble.

Since you downloaded the file FB_David_Berlow_Specimens.p, you convinced yourself that this lunatic file contains four thousand eight hundred eighty three Adobe copyright notices.

Judge Ronald M. Whyte arrived at a bizarre summary judgment in the Adove vs. SSI lawsuit, and I would not be surprised, if this judge arrives at the bizarre judgment that this lunatic file contains four thousand eight hundred eighty three valid copyright notices for four thousand eight hundred eighty three different copyrighted works.

Uli, I really hope that you’ll find a hobby horse next or any year which isn’t so incredibly boring as your futile investigations against us dimwitted font forgin’ fellows …

Eine erholsame Weihnachtszeit
B.

>Judge Ronald M. Whyte

Aha. Well, let us assume he retired at 65 (in 2007 or 2008). Is there anyone else?

Cheers!

Mr. Berlow:

> Aha. Well, let us assume he retired

But see here:

www.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/calendar.nsf/9d570fb89a18988c88256e450079c449...

You may want to send this Christmas present to Judge Ronald M. Whyte:

www.sanskritweb.net/temporary/Whyte.pdf

He certainly will be most delighted at the stunning copyright activities of Adobe System Incorporated.

Look, if you generate the .ps file from the same PDF with a different driver, say the one that Apple includes with OS X, the Adobe copyright notices all vanish! All 4883! Amazing! Could it be that Apple is deliberately trying to thwart Adobe's plot to claim copyright on every document known to man???

Of course not. It's because your claim is absurd.

Clearly, the Adobe copyright notices refer to PostScript code dynamically generated by the Adobe PS driver, NOT the contents of the PDF document, or even the .ps document. The PostScript code is necessary to output the content to a PostScript-compatible output device. Only the content appears in the output. You will not see any Adobe copyright notices magically appearing in the output from the device because they have nothing to do with the content. The PostScript code is merely a means to an end, and it is obviously the means that Adobe is claiming copyright on, not the end. Otherwise you would see Adobe copyright notices on every page printed from an Adobe PS device.

I feel like I'm trying to explain to a child that there are no little people inside the television set. And the child keeps saying, "But look! Little people!"

Mark Simonson:

> I feel like I’m trying to explain to a child that ...

I have the same feeling too.

When I open a novel, I see only ONE copyright notice.

Do you know, why? Because ONE novel is only ONE work.

There are shysters who want to make dimwitted court judges believe that a 200-page novel with 40 lines per page consists of 8000 works. But a novel is only ONE work, not thousands of works.

The same is true here: Adobe System Incorporated wants to make dimwitted judges believe that ONE printer file consists of thousands of copyrighted works. For this purpose, Adobe System Incorporated inserts thousands of copyright notices into printer files.

Interpretation #1:

Adobe has inserted thousands of false copyright notices into postscript files in order to intentionally claim rights to thousands of individual works.

Interpretation #2:

Under certain circumstances, as an unintended side-effect of the process by which a postscript file is generated, numerous copyright notices are accidentally generated and inserted into a postscript file--thereby, in effect, constituting a "bug" in the software.

Occam's razor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Uli, have you never opened a magazine and seen a copyright notice next to a photo (attributed to the photographer) or on an ad (attributed to an advertiser) and yet another one on the contents page of the magazine (attributed to the publisher of the magazine)? Oh my god! The publisher is "obviously" claiming copyright over the ads and photos since they are contained within the magazine! How can this be???

Has it occurred to you that your understanding of copyright law might be lacking? Not to mention your grasp of the PostScript page description language?

>But see here:

Good! We're just hard working folks, take your case to him!
I'm sure he's got plenty of time for you and the "little pill you took today."

Cheers!

I find it hard to believe that you guys are — one one hand — so disparaging about Uli, and — on the other hand — take time and make an effort to respond to his posts.

Just do the same as I do with posts by Rasendyll here in ‘Release’: don’t open them, don’t react to them.

Namaste!

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

I agree that it's probably a waste of time as far as convincing him, but I don't think it's a waste of time to point out how absurd it is for the sake of those (maybe not many) who might interpret a lack of response as tacit acknowledgment of the validity of his claims. Well, okay, mostly a waste of time.

Mark Simonson:

> Uli, have you never opened a magazine

As opposed to you, I once was the editor in chief of a computer magazine.

Here is one of the 4883 sections from the PS file, starting with a copyright line and ending with a copyright line:

%%Copyright: Copyright 2037 Adobe System Incorporated. All rights reserved.
systemdict begin
/XKLAAA+Interstate-Black findfont dup
/Private get dup rcheck
{begin true}{pop false}ifelse exch
/CharStrings get begin
systemdict /gcheck known {currentglobal currentdict gcheck setglobal} if
/F <1C60D8A8C9B647203E33724EAD15A63443573BE10E38E422B98DD0D8CB50
BEFC7D0B3933BCE3575B9C> |-
/O <1C60D8A8C9B611AF7D30CDD635D123761F64CF30F58A52AD4BC4DC085C81
1DBBF2139FC81D71631D6CF05C48B9CF305BDDE7DC24C643412054B303F75553
D16DCEB4F07EEFC0186D28FA7ED7B5770410> |-
/N <1C60D8A8C9B6E9C31455B9A91EE7C51E6B41686C1DA2314EC297A5F154FC
0151446E069BC4841F6A4FC108EDAFE409CDF8F347BEB80E676A18460D8BF69F
6EEF0B7EB848FBED2195> |-
/T <1C60D8A8C9B653D76D5E115C5FA7AC6F6C574195059FB91CA01446E07455
8CE20EF823D5> |-
/space <1C60D8A8C9B820E227> |-
/B <1C60D8A8C9B600E03FCFCF8A62DA8524663E60782D87BFC54856D9619F61
F77354B6D64590974B79BC96809DD31DE7A2DD1B837148C1B5E59EBCB1C3E8BD
CCB0957CD6DA66615D552CCBF7E2D4E72C2EF13B941F871709695406F9DE765A
E403F9942CCBC6> |-
/U <1C60D8A8C9B6E156CCF3B7F970E96F466445ECDC37A193B08EC6D0A79886
75879EAF73AFB39BE72EF97BB8B384F9F03430A0D911F893949338D756> |-
/R <1C60D8A8C9B601B67B7576E28C38A1A47CC596A989D27D669061B572883F
EDCC8493EE1BD6EA3FE4853330CAD5DD709AFF0B104B33A3446D4815673653B5
CD782780105F78F20B920E774384> |-
/E <1C60D8A8C9B64EDFFB807287B962D470369964FA845A19A69B899736F153
D9D09DDBE63D6D458641B70D3114F3> |-
/A <1C60D8A8C9B6EFA83F92740EE627D45CDD9109CB8AAAF3FCBCF8EBD07475
A8254610043DAE8DD6CF491DCBD4A6BE121B95F27434D5494D0D069F9A8EEC8E
B332D1> |-
systemdict /gcheck known {setglobal} if end {end} if
end
/XKLAAA+Interstate-Black findfont /Encoding get
dup 70 /F put
dup 79 /O put
dup 78 /N put
dup 84 /T put
dup 32 /space put
dup 66 /B put
dup 85 /U put
dup 82 /R put
dup 69 /E put
dup 65 /A put
pop
end
%ADOEndSubsetFont
/N2792 12.9305 Tf
(FONT BUREAU)
[8.46954 9.72367 10.034 8.92202 4.5257 9.52972 9.93064 9.51689 8.88335 9.659 9.93064
] pdfxs
userdict /pdf_svglb currentglobal put true setglobal
%ADOBeginSubsetFont: WKFBAA+InterstateTab-Regular-Identity-H Initial
Adobe_CoolType_Utility begin ct_MakeOCF begin ct_saveCIDInit
%ADOt1write: (1.0.24)
%%Copyright: Copyright 2037 Adobe System Incorporated. All rights reserved.

If you, Mr. Simonson, are as clever as you claim to be, then

a) show the lines that constitute a copyrighted work by Adobe System, and
b) show the lines that constitute a copyrighted work by Font Bureau.

The Adobe copyright notice immediately follows what it refers to, "ADOt1write":

%ADOt1write: (1.0.24)
%%Copyright: Copyright 2037 Adobe System Incorporated. All rights reserved.

In the code above, the font has already been defined, and this line just requests it:

/XKLAAA+Interstate-Black findfont dup

In your original post, here is where an embedded font actually starts, and note that it includes a proper copyright notice:

12 dict dup begin
/FontType 1 def
/FontName /XKLAAA+Interstate-Black def
/FontInfo 7 dict dup begin
/Notice (Copyright (c) The Font Bureau, Inc., 2003. All rights reserved.) def

Really, do you know anything about how PostScript code works?

Also, FWIW, I don't really know why Adobe assigns the year dynamically to the copyright notice. I agree that it seems odd. But that's a side issue and has nothing to do with your assertion that they are claiming copyright ownership over other peoples' intellectual property.

The copyrights are clearly for portions of the PostScript code, just as there are copyright notices for the embedded fonts, which are also portions of the entire file (and also PostScript code). The idea that a .ps file can somehow legitimately contain only one copyright notice is absurd.

Merry Christmas, Mark I'll bet we get more snow here in Virginia to night than you do in Minnesota ;-)

ChrisL

Thanks Uli. I've been looking for some bedtime reading.

Merry Christmas, Mark I’ll bet we get more snow here in Virginia to night than you do in Minnesota ;-)

So I hear. Although it's nothing to what you get sometimes in cyberspace. Happy holidays!

Mark Simonson:

1.

> Really, do you know anything about how PostScript code works?

Here is a specimen:

% Adobe's Whyte Christmas
/Schrift {/h exch def
/Serifa-Black findfont
h scalefont
setfont} bind def
150 Schrift
20 200 moveto
(ADOBE) true charpath clip newpath
6 Schrift
.5 setgray
-200 0 moveto
40 {gsave
20 {(Whyte Christmas ) show} repeat
grestore
4 10 rmoveto} repeat
showpage

www.sanskritweb.net/temporary/Whyte-Christmas.pdf

2.

> The copyrights are clearly for portions of the PostScript code

Copyright notices must not be affixed to portions, but only to works
(see § 401 US Copyright Law).

None of the four thousand eight hundred eighty-three lunatic copyright lines was affixed to a work.

As Mr. Simonson did not give technical explanations, I do it myself here:

www.sanskritweb.net/forgers/interstate.pdf

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html

In particular...

§ 103. Subject matter of copyright: Compilations and derivative works

[...]

(b) The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material.

> In particular...

When I make a PS book file of the new edition of my Sanskrit book, which was written by me alone without co-authors, and which uses my own Sanskrit fonts, and when I see that Adobe inserts more than 1600 (sixteen hundred) copyright notices ("Copyright 2009 Adobe System Incorporated. All rights reserved") into my book file, do you think that Adobe System Incorporated is the coauthor or editor or compiler of my own book?

PS: This 500+ page book file contains only ONE copyright notice by myself, but 1600 copyright notices by Adobe System Incorporated.

...do you think that Adobe System Incorporated is the coauthor or editor or compiler of my own book?

No. Please see (b) above.

Maybe we need to get to four thousand eight hundred and eighty eight posts on this subject before Uli will understand that Adobe is only copyrighting the Acrobat Postscript and not the included fonts, photographs or any other content placed by the user in the generated PDF file. PostScript was the basis for the founding of Adobe and for a number of years the company's best income generator - today Adobe has branched out in a variety of directions and PostScript and fonts are no longer as important as they used to be.

> As opposed to you, I once was the editor in chief of a computer magazine.

Every story has a beginning, middle and an end; I don't see it here. Moreover, I don't see the Five Ws. If you think that you have an exclusive -- publish it.

@uli

When I have a chance I'll look at your documents
© 2009 Richard Fink All Rights Reserved

and try to figure out exactly what you're referring to.
© 2009 Richard Fink All Rights Reserved

But certainly it seems like excessive use of
© 2009 Richard Fink All Rights Reserved

copyright notices is a waste of system resources.
© 2009 Richard Fink All Rights Reserved