please review 'application/pdf'

[Marc Mutz]

On Friday 24 October 2003 16:17, Chris Lilley wrote:
> On Friday, October 24, 2003, 1:14:24 PM, Marc wrote:
<snip>
> I agree. But in this case, its not assumptions. The intent is
> specifically described in the PDF. However, the field might not
> actually contain the © symbol and thus, in some jurisdictions, it
> might not count as a valid assertion of copyright unless the media
> type registration explicitly calls it out.

So what you are saying is that the flags might not be legally binding as 
long as I haven't read the specs? Hmm, too bad I did. Will tell others 
to not make the same mistake :-))

To recall:
>>    o Accessing the document in ways not permitted by the document's
>>      access permissions is a violation of the document author's
>>      copyright.

The more often I read this, the more I get to the conclusion that this 
is a call to implement law. But law needs to implemented by judges and 
legislative, not software. I can't help but feel that Adobe tries to 
outlaw Elcomsoft-like software in this way and tries to abuse IANA and 
IETF for that. Maybe I'm paranoid. But a technical document shouldn't 
wake those feelings in me :-)

> MM>  Or, for that matter, for a media type registration to mandate
> MM> DRM.
>
> It doesn't do that either. There is no access control or other
> provision in the quoted sentence.
>
> It just says that if the author has said in the PDF file that the
> material is copyright, then the material is copyright. This strikes
> me as sensible. And copyright works can be quoted, cited, and so
> forth.

It states that "accessing the doc in ways not permitted by the [flags] 
is a violation of the [..] author's copyright." Not having read the 
spec and thus not knowing what access permissions are available, I 
nevertheless speculate that they include printing, viewing, extracting 
text etc. But if that PDF content is copyrighted and I want to extract 
a quote and I use software that doesn't implement the above 
requirement, at least in my jurisdiction I am (still :-( ) allowed to 
do that and the author can only prohibit that if I use the quote 
against her personally (simplified). I am expressedly _not_ violating 
her copyright (implying criminal intend), contrary to what the text 
states.

Trying to restrict rights the law gives me _is_ what I call DRM...

> MM> It may be that the document is the result of the conversion
> MM> of a freely available Web page to PDF format (e.g. print to PDF)
> and MM> that the creator of the document, as opposed to the creator
> of the MM> content.
>
> Yes; but then, the capture software should transfer that copyright
> information across (if its machine readable, which it probably
> isn't). If save-to-PDF software is adding 'copyright the person that
> saved it' then it is wrong.

What if the creator of the PDF instructed it to? According to the text, 
I'd be violating the author's copyright, which is rediculous, given 
that the author probably didn't even know about the creation of the 
PDF. :-o

Yes. That is a case for the judges to decide. Exactly. My words. Not the 
software or a media type registration. ;-)

> Another good catch, though I would prefer to see that expressed as a
> positive (software should give full control over ...) rather than
> appearing to state that writing erroneous values is acceptable.

"Software should only add and change this data if explicitly directed to 
by the user."

Add that, fine. But don't replace it. The security considerations 
section of a media type registration is there to list the 
security-related issues of the _format_. I don't think it should try to 
standardize behaviour of software that generates or reads the data. 
That's out of scope for a media type registration. Even if it did, the 
risk of software putting my phone number into the PDF to be published 
on the web would still be there.

Marc

-- 
They [RIAA,MPAA] are trying to invent a new crime:
interference with a business model.
                           --Bruce Schneier, Crypto-Gram 08/2002
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