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                     Breaking the law! Breaking the law!

Ah … wierdness in law. It seems that Adobe® [1] added code to Adobe®
Photoshop® to prevent images of currency to be manipulated [2] using said
program. In the discussion on Slashdot [3], USC Title 18 Part I Chapter 25
§504 [4] came up. Relevent bits:

> **(i)** all illustrations shall be in black and white, except that
> illustrations of postage stamps issued by the United States or by any
> foreign government and stamps issued under the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp
> Act of 1934 may be in color;
>
> **(ii)** all illustrations (including illustrations of uncanceled postage
> stamps in color and illustrations of stamps issued under the Migratory Bird
> Hunting Stamp Act of 1934 in color) shall be of a size less than three-
> fourths or more than one and one-half, in linear dimension, of each part of
> any matter so illustrated which is covered by subparagraph (A), (B), (C),
> or (D) of this paragraph, except that black and white illustrations of
> postage and revenue stamps issued by the United States or by any foreign
> government and colored illustrations of canceled postage stamps issued by
> the United States may be in the exact linear dimension in which the stamps
> were issued; and
>
> **(iii)** the negatives and plates used in making the illustrations shall
> be destroyed after their final use in accordance with this section. The
> Secretary of the Treasury shall prescribe regulations to permit color
> illustrations of such currency of the United States as the Secretary
> determines may be appropriate for such purposes.
>

“USC Title 18, Part I, Chapter 25, §504 [5]”

I may be breaking the law.

According to (i) above, all illustrations have to be in black and white,
except for certains stamps that fall under the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp
Act of 1934 [6] (code (USC Title 16, Chapter 7, Subchapter IV) [7]). But (ii)
above states that all illustrations have to be larger or smaller than actual
size, unless they are in black and white! at which case, they can be actual
size.

Blink. Blink.

(iii) is pretty explicit, although I'm now concerned I may have to destroy my
scanner.

You see, it all comes down to the most linked image on my site [8]—that of
[DELETED-Jeff Conaway-DELETED] Andrew Jackson [9]. I scanned the image off
the new US (United States) $20 bill (well, not so new now) and while I don't
have the full US $20 bill being displayed, I do have the portrait that is
fairly close to actual size (at least on my monitor) and it's in color (okay,
black and green). So, I'm either violating provision (i) above (by having it
in color) or (ii) above (by having it near actual size) and (iii) by virtue
of not having destroyed the image or scanner, although technically speaking,
the scanner does not have plates, and the concept of a “negative” is pretty
tenuous, so I may not have to destroy my scanner.

But the size issue does concern me. I could check against a real US $20, but
my wallet is currently in the bedroom, and there's this huge ever growing
pulsating [DELETED-bee-DELETED] wasp that rules from the center of the
bedroom [10] so the actual check will have to wait.

But if the check does prove that the image of Andrew Jackson is smaller or
larger than actual size (“Really officer! Check out the image here on my 72″
monitor—see! That doesn't match the actual size at all!”) I'm still probably
violating provision (i) above by having it in color. I suppose I could just
delete the image entirely and solve this and other problems but that still
doesn't actually answer the question of “Am I breaking (or have I broken) the
law?”

And it sucks that it would cost me $400 to have a lawyer go “Don't know, but
delete it anyway just to make sure, unless you really want to test this in a
court of law in which case hand over your bank account.”

Update

According to Adobe® [11], I need to include trademark information [12]
whenever I mention Adobe® or any Adobe® products, like Adobe® Photoshop®.
Thanks to Kisrael [13] for the heads up.


Adobe and Photoshop are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe
Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.


[1] http://www.adobe.com/
[2] http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,61877,00.html
[3] http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/08/0111228
[4] http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/504.html
[5] http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/504.html
[6] http://duckstamps.fws.gov/federal/federal.htm
[7] http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/16/ch7schIV.html
[8] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2003/12/02.1
[9] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2002/03/05.2
[10] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2004/01/12.1
[11] http://www.adobe.com/
[12] http://www.adobe.com/misc/trade.html
[13] http://www.kisrael.com/viewblog.cgi?date=2004.01.12

Email author at [email protected]