Font foundries claiming ebook font embedding is “distribution.” Just another money grab?

[M.A.]

I had a problem recently with an ebook file as a result of which I discovered Adobe are encrypting fonts embedded in ebooks; this can cause your file to be rejected by retailers. I wrote a blog post about this and the others issues this new practice gives rise to, which is too long to post here and contains links to relevant sites, as well as images. If the topic interests you, the blog post is here:

http://mademers.com/globalindieauthor...

[Erin]

Good information, I will take note.

[Gaynor]

Hi Erin,
Is it only when PDF is made in InDesign? I have a different program (much simpler) that simply converts word docs to PDF and I know I don't purposely embed fonts. Wondering if future works would be affected.
Gaynor

[David]

As a font designer, the problem is that the embedded fonts are relatively easily available to any hacker. So, embedding fonts in an ePUB is essentially giving them away to all your readers. Now, that is problematic for most font designers who live off their royalties as we authors do. It takes nearly as long to design a font family as it does to write a book (1 to 3 years). So, the real problem is that ereaders currently do not accept embedded fonts (except for the Kindle Fire). PDFs have always done this fairly well. The problem is with the ePUBs and mobi files.

It's an easy export from InDesign CS6 for either an ePUB or a KF8 (Fire) book with embedded fonts. Here again, the word processors simply cannot do it.

[M.A.]

David: most ereaders can accept embedded fonts; whether they can display them is another issue. The technical problem lies not with font embedding but font encryption.

Gaynor: The PDFs made from Word automatically embed fonts. This is not a problem because one can not simply open the PDF document and take out the font. However, with ePubs they can. That is the core of the debate.

[David]

I've found that Nook, iBooks, and Kobo cannot display fonts and only the Kindle Fire in the Kindle family. At this point it is illegal to embed fonts without encryption unless you have a license to do so. And no one is selling those licenses.

PDFs have had embedded fonts for many years. The problem with Word PDFs is the typography is so bad. With any PDF you have the choice to embed or not.

[David]

BTW Many fonts do not allow embedding in PDFs either.