Date: Wed, 18 May 2011 23:14:04 -0400
From: "Mike B." <yahoo at omniphile.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Capclave 2013 GOH
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On 5/18/2011 9:58 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> "Michael Walsh"<MJW at press.jhu.edu>  wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch"<kfl at KeithLynch.net>  wrote:
>>> On the other hand, there haven't been any WSFA Journals this year
>>> except the January issue (with last December's meeting minutes),
>>> and a PDF-only February/March issue which says only "Error: Copying
>>> of text from this document is not allowed." when I try to read it.
>
>> FWIW, I had no problems just now looking at it.
>
> I just tried it again, and got the same error.  For some reason, the
> Journal editor or the webmaster decided to block the viewing of text
> from that PDF.

I just looked at it too.  Went to the website, clicked the PDF link, and
it opened up in Adobe Reader without problems.  It's "secured", so you
can't copy text from it (using Adobe Reader anyway), but there's nothing
stopping me from reading the text.

What are you trying to read it with?

> They only want people whose browsers support PDF to
> read it.  I wonder why.  And whether that's directed at anyone in
> particular.

Browser support isn't needed.  You can download the file and read it
with anything you like.  Some things will work better than others of
course.  Reading it with Adobe Reader seems to work fine, but trying to
read it with, say, a salad spinner, would be very unlikely to get you far.

I suspect the purpose of protecting the PDF against text copying is to
make copyright infringement slightly harder (you can't make it
impossible if anyone can read it at all).  Assuming it was done on
purpose of course.

As for paranoid delusions about specific people being targeted for
exclusion, that's a real stretch.

>>> Any reason they weren't CCd here?  You know that not everyone on
>>> this list is on the Yahoo! list.
>
>> Any idea how many?
>
> I have no idea who is on the Yahoo! list.  The list of people on this
> list has always been visible at
> http://KeithLynch.net/wsfa/list/subscribers.htm

That makes your statement that there are people here who aren't on the
yahoo list questionable.  Not saying you aren't right, but if you don't
know who is on the yahoo list, how would you know there are people here
who aren't?

-- Mike B.