Q: I want to embed a font into a PDF document. What are the legal/copyright/licensing issues involved?
A:
The PDF Spec (http://xodo.com/view/#/c0c11968-ee14-478e-9b09-6dc5635c0915, 9.9) has this to say:
Font programs are subject to copyright, and the copyright owner may impose conditions under which a font program may be used. These permissions are recorded either in the font program or as part of a separate license. One of the conditions may be that the font program cannot be embedded, in which case it should not be incorporated into a PDF file. A font program may allow embedding for the sole purpose of viewing and printing the document but not for creating new or modified text that uses the font (in either the same document or other documents). The latter operation would require the user performing the operation to have a licensed copy of the font program, not a copy extracted from the PDF file. In the absence of explicit information to the contrary, embedded font programs shall be used only to view and print the document and not for any other purposes.