Re: Copyright grant for Adobe Times fonts?

On 7/11/06, Marc Aurele La France <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Jul 2006, Robinson Tryon wrote:
>
> > I've been working on a program that includes the Adobe Times font from
> > the debian package x11/xfonts-75dpi.  That package is assembled from
> > xfree86 sources.
>
> > Several other fonts that come from xfree86 have explict copyright
> > permissions -- for example the Bitstream Charter fonts, but I have
> > been unable to find any record of Adobe giving a license for their
> > 'Times' fonts.  I asked debian-legal, but no one could provide me with
> > solid information about the upstream licensing.
>
> > The font files themselves have "all-rights-reserved" copyright notices
> > for Adobe and Digital:
> > Copyright (c) 1984, 1987 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.
> > Copyright (c) 1988, 1991 Digital Equipment Corporation.  All Rights
> > Reserved.  Times is a trademark of Linotype-Hell AG and/or its
> > subsidiaries.
>
> > The upstream license' section of the COPYRIGHT file for the
> > xfonts-75dpi package does not appear to contain any pertinent
> > information, other than mentioning Adobe's name in a long list of
> > contributors.
>
> > Does anyone know where I could find the explicit license from
> > Adobe/Digital for these fonts to be included in Xfree86?
>
> You are confusing copyright and license.

You're right -- I should have written that more clearly.

> The license says how the work can
> be redistributed.  The copyright says who has the authority to grant such a
> license.

Agreed.

> Rest assured that XFree86 does not include any font that cannot be
> freely redistributed.   And by "freely redistributed", I mean without any
> incumberances whatsoever.

But the font files say (to paraphrase) "copyright Adobe/Digital, all
rights reserved".  No one has been able to produce a license from
Adobe that indicates that the Adobe Times fonts can be freely
distributed.

Other fonts included in XFree86 include a license from the copyright
owner of the font.  For example, here is the one for Bitstream
Charter:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Bitstream Type 1 fonts are under the following license:

(c) Copyright 1989-1992, Bitstream Inc., Cambridge, MA.

You are hereby granted permission under all Bitstream propriety rights
to use, copy, modify, sublicense, sell, and redistribute the 4 Bitstream
Charter (r) Type 1 outline fonts and the 4 Courier Type 1 outline fonts
for any purpose and without restriction; provided, that this notice is
left intact on all copies of such fonts and that Bitstream's trademark
is acknowledged as shown below on all unmodified copies of the 4 Charter
Type 1 fonts.

BITSTREAM CHARTER is a registered trademark of Bitstream Inc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If I don't have a license for the Adobe Times font, then I can't
(legally) distribute those files.  Right?

-- Robinson Tryon