Licensing questions...

Report · Jan 11, 2016

It's been suggesting that the project I'm working on might violate T&C, so I'm trying to clarify if what I'm doing is wrong, and what's the right way to do it if so.

We have a small application for stamping pdfs with things (construction company, things like "tender" or "for construction". We want to manage this ourselves so we can tie the actions back into AutoCAD.

Right now, I've been looking at just using the free pdf viewer that comes with reader (AxAcroPdf) and basic itextsharp functions, but I'm not sure that is legal. I've never used the SDK.

We have multiple copies of Acrobat Professional X and Distiller X though NOT one for every computer and this would be on every computer.

1)Is what I'm doing legal?

2)if not, is there a legal way to do it with the SDK and do our copies permit that?

3)are 3rd party components a legal way around this? if not, how do they exist?

Thanks in advance!!

Report · Jan 13, 2016

Really need an answer to this.... anyone?

Report · Jan 14, 2016

There's a problem here: non-Adobe staff (like me) can't offer you a definitive answer. And I suspect (but cannot confirm) that Adobe staff may be forbidden from offering an opinion on license agreement interpretation, since you could then end up with a conflict between the license intent, as interpreted by the courts and Adobe's lawyer, and an interpretation of any Adobe staff member. Since I don't speak for Adobe I can only offer useless insight, but my advice is to err on the side of caution as an exchange with Adobe's lawyers is unlikely to cheer anyone up.

Report · Jan 14, 2016

While it has no legal weight, it can help to understand the intention of license agreements if you think about why particular weird clauses are there. Here is my take on this issue. Not as Adobe staff of course, just as an outside observer.

Adobe exists to sell software. They exist to sell Acrobat. They don't exist to give Reader away, rather they give Reader away in order to increase sales of Acrobat. Now, Acrobat has an extensive API. This is not an accident or a favour: the API exists to make Acrobat more attractive, so they sell more copies. So, Acrobat Reader also has an API. Much smaller and simpler, designed not to discourage sales of Acrobat and its rich API.

So, if your end users had Acrobat you could develop a tool to stamp and view files, or just add this to Acrobat. This is good for sales. But someone wants to edit PDFs (e.g. stamping) with non-Adobe code (perhaps because it's cheaper) and view with Reader (pethaps because it's free, good at its job, and alternatives are limited). But Adobe don't see why they should help you write a rival to Acrobat, built on their free software. So, wherever possible, they use license terms so you cannot use Reader to cut into their sales of Acrobat.

Report · Jan 14, 2016

As TSN already explained, most people here are just users of Adobe's products, just like you. The best way to resolve legal issues is to talk to a lawyer. I know, we usually try to avoid that at all cost, but it's really the only way to get an interpretation of the license terms imposed by the software you are using.

I can however give you some information about your 3rd question:

Adobe no longer owns the PDF specification. This document is now maintained as an interrelation standard by ISO. This means that anybody can get that specification and develop applications that create, modify or consume PDF files. This means that any 3rd party tool that you can find (or build using e.g. the iText library you mention) is perfectly legal because it's built based on an open standard (that is, within the licensing terms that solution comes with).