Plugin idea: Obfuscate fonts

[PenguinCEO]

故事主要描述當伐木

[Sam Sahara]

Originally Posted by PenguinCEO

So my proposal is the following: a plugin for the calibre editor aimed at obfuscating the embedded fonts.

In fact this feature is missing in calibre, and would make it a more professional tool.

[stumped]

question: if a font is being used without the necessary rights/royalty payments, does obfuscating it before selling the created books make it any less dishonest ?

I am not understanding the previous comment unless "make it more professional " is some euphemism for "make it better suited for stealing others' IP"

[Sam Sahara]

Originally Posted by stumped

... I am not understanding the previous comment unless "make it more professional " is some euphemism for "make it better suited for stealing others' IP"

No, it's simpler. If I buy a font set I have the right to use it but not the right to share it. Obfuscating fonts is a way to use font sets without let other people to extract my fonts, respecting my contract with the foundry. It is well explained in the link provided by PenguinCEO.

It is professional because it is the system used by publishing houses.

[KevinH]

Calibre has the capability to handle obfuscated fonts otherwise there would be no way to preview or show an epub that used them. In order to preview/edit the epub the fonts must not be obfuscated.

[stumped]

Originally Posted by Sam Sahara

No, it's simpler. If I buy a font set I have the right to use it but not the right to share it. Obfuscating fonts is a way to use font sets without let other people to extract my fonts, respecting my contract with the foundry. It is well explained in the link provided by PenguinCEO.

It is professional because it is the system used by publishing houses.

ok thanks - sorry for mis-understanding. I did not realise that you buy "use but not share" permissions, which let you legally sell as many copies of the books as you can. Seems strange that you are contractually expected to somehow prevent the purchased font from being lifted out of the books and reused though, as that's probably doable even with obfuscation

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Sam Sahara

No, it's simpler. If I buy a font set I have the right to use it but not the right to share it. Obfuscating fonts is a way to use font sets without let other people to extract my fonts, respecting my contract with the foundry. It is well explained in the link provided by PenguinCEO.

Depends on the font foundry. Some allow use in ebooks if obfuscated, others require you to purchase an additional license which allows redistribution of the obfuscated font since they realize a DRM scheme where the key must be present in clear text in the epub file is pretty much useless.

Sigil has an option in it's right click font menu to use no obfuscation, Adobe or IDPF obfuscation which has been there for a decade.

Oddly, I've seen more publishing houses using Adobe's font obfuscation rather than the IDPF (or whatever the correct name currently is) font obfuscation.

As for any protection offered by obfuscation? I seem to recall that calibre can can and will remove font obfuscation. As the link mentions:

The proposed mechanism will simply provide a stumbling block for those who are unaware of the license details of the supplied font. It will not prevent a determined user from gaining full access to the font.

In any case, subsetting is definitely the better option than font obfuscation IMSHO. Something which calibre's editor fully supports.

Originally Posted by Sam Sahara

It is professional because it is the system used by publishing houses.

Thanks for the laugh. I've looked at quite a few epubs produced by publishing houses. Professional is not the word that comes to mind for many of them.

[kovidgoyal]

font obfuscation is a total joke. I strongly recommend using subsetting instead.

[JSWolf]

It is very easy to remove the obfuscation from a font. But when the font is subset, it's useless other then with that specific eBook.
'

[stumped]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It is very easy to remove the obfuscation from a font. But when the font is subset, it's useless other then with that specific eBook.
'

I dont understand, if the book text uses all 26 letters of the alphabet then the subset is essentially "complete" enough for re-use?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stumped

I dont understand, if the book text uses all 26 letters of the alphabet then the subset is essentially "complete" enough for re-use?

But, if all 26 letters are not of one font family, then there isn't a complete font. And there won't be all 26 letters in both upper/lower and all the numbers and symbols. Plus, any extended characters could be subset as well. And there is the regular, bold, italic and bolditalic variations. If any one of those is not used, it will be removed. So the odds of subsetting such that the font is reusable is not going to happen.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by stumped

I dont understand, if the book text uses all 26 letters of the alphabet then the subset is essentially "complete" enough for re-use?

Most of the added fonts I've seen are in two groups. Fonts used for body text are often freely distributable (Charis SIL was commonly used by one publishing house). The remainder are decorative fonts (those cursive letters some folk love for dropcaps and the first letter of chapter headings, as examples). The first set does not need protection and the second set will likely only have one font variant (regular, bold, bold-italic or italic) and use a relatively small number of characters with no numerals or lower case. That group is better protected by subsetting.

[PenguinCEO]

故事主要描述當伐木

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by PenguinCEO

Foundries require subsetting for incorporating fonts into pdf documents, and obfuscation for incorporation into epub. It seems to me that a simple plugin would be useful to simplify the life of those who write and publish electronic texts.

The vast majority of plugins (90%+) are written by the person who first identified the need for the functionality. This is true not only of calibre, but also of most other application software that supports some form of plugin/add-in capability.

Once developed and published the author might take on requests for enhancements.

BR

[DNSB]

Just to add to the thread, here's a sample electronic publication license from Linotype:

Licences for electronic publications (ePubs)
An electronic publication licence authorises you to embed the font in electronic documents, such as e-books, e-magazines and e-newspapers. Each licence is valid for one title only and for the full operating life of that title. If the font is not to be directly embedded in an electronic publication (if, for example, it is be used to generate a static image, such as the cover of an e-book), you will instead need to purchase a desktop font licence.
Every issue of an e-magazine, e-newspaper or other form of e-periodical is considered a separate, new publication. Format variations do not count as separate publications. You will not need to purchase new licences for updated versions of publications that are issued free to already existing readers. However, newly issued versions are defined as separate, new publications.
You’ll find answers to about common questions regarding extended licenses like licenses for electronic publications (ePubs) in our informative in our Web fonts FAQ section.

I checked with several other font foundries and their agreements were much the same -- every ebook title requires it's own license though some do offer multiple licenses on the same purchase so you can purchase 5 license packs at a bit of a discount.

Also commonly found:

The digital publication may not allow the installation of the font on the operating system where the publication is viewed, nor may it allow end user access to the font software independently of the digital publication software.

A query to one foundry was responded to with subsetting being the preferred method for any electronic publication. Obfuscation is allowed where the entire font must be embedded but is not recommended since it is basically considered to offer no protection for their IP.

Also surprising was the number of foundries (Berthold as a example) that specifically prohibit the use of their fonts in electronic publications:

No Digital Publishing. Licensee may not use the Font Software to create, and/or embed the Font Software (or vector and rasterized representations of the Font Software) into, any form of digital publishing document files (e.g. e-books) including EPUB/PDF/TIFF/JPG/PNG/SVG and similar formats including vector and rasterized representations of the Font Software.

Admittedly, reading through Berthold's EULA made me wonder just what you could use their font's for. Pretty much every use seems to be prohibited. They do offer an enterprise license -- just make sure you are in a comfortable chair when you start down that path. Cheap, they ain't.