[pdftex] distributing PDF documents with embedded fonts

Reinhard Kotucha reinhard.kotucha at web.de
Thu Aug 4 00:25:01 CEST 2011


On 2011-08-02 at 01:16:03 +0200, Grzegorz Balcerek wrote:

 > Hello,
 > 
 > I would like to embed CM and LM (Latin Modern) fonts in a pdf
 > document and be able to distribute that document.
 > 
 > I am trying to figure out if there are any legal restrictions.
 > 
 > As far as I understand the following license documents are relevant
 > for the LM fonts
 > 
 > 1) GUST font license:
 > http://tug.org/fonts/licenses/GUST-FONT-LICENSE.txt
 > 
 > 2) the LaTeX Project Public License:
 > http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt
 > 
 > Is the act of embedding a font into a pdf document and distributing
 > that document covered by those licenses? Is it restricted by those
 > licenses? Is it treated as a "distribution" and/or "modification"
 > of the font?
 > 
 > I do not find in those documents any direct information about how a
 > document with an embedded font should be treated.
 

It's better to ask such questions on less specialized mailing lists
like texhax, for instance.

You can freely use these fonts in your documents and distribute the
documents without any restriction.

 > Is it a "derived work" (derived from the font)?

No.  "derived work" in this respect denotes modified versions of the
fonts themselves.  What the above-mentioned licenses try to prevent is
that you distribute modified versions of these fonts.  The latter is
allowed though, under certain conditions.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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