Fonts and copyright

farss wrote on 5/7/2006, 2:22 PM

Sort of a carry over from another thread I know.
This isn't as sexy as 'music and copyright' but seems to me a way bigger minefield and one that's deserving of far more attention, it's way easier to inadvertantly steal someones IP with these little beasties and man could you end up with some tedious battles in court.
I've come accross one font that is identical to Ariel Bold apart from one letter having an extra stroke. I couldn't find the real font for a project I did some time ago so I added the stroke using PS so it matched the company logo but now I realise that could have been very naughty

But now doing some research it seems that maybe it's not an issue?

"The Committee does not regard the design of typeface, as thus defined, to be a copyrightable 'pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work' within the meaning of this bill and the application of the dividing line in section 101." H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, 94th Congress, 2d Session at 55 (1976), reprinted in1978 U.S. Cong. and Admin. News 5659, 5668."

So the only restriction is that one cannot sell / pass off the electronic means to create the font, a bit map in a graphics file or video that looks the same is not a breach of copyright?

Oops, now I read that this ONLY applies in the USA, every other country treats fonts like any other piece of IP.

Bob.

Comments

JackW wrote on 5/7/2006, 10:18 PM

There might be a problem with some of the newer fonts -- Broadway, MS Sans Serif or Tahoma, for example -- but fonts such as Courier, Century Gothic, Arial, Bookman, etc., have been around at least 100 years or more and are almost surely in the public domain.

If certain fonts are protected by international copyright law there must be someplace where they are listed. I imagine it will take an awful lot of time to find where, though.

With all the free fonts available -- there was a post regarding this not long ago -- it shouldn't be too hard find an equivalent to the font in doubt.

Good luck,

Jack

TorS wrote on 5/7/2006, 11:29 PM

If a type house could outlaw manipulation of their fonts, how many licenses do you think they'd sell? In any case there would be a difference between the use of a certain font and the manipulation of a (registered) logo, even if the logo is made (mainly, at least) by the use of a certain font.

As to the public domain theory, most of the "classic" fonts that we use are not really classic in the '100 years old' sense of the word. They are more recent variations of the real thing. So many times (pun intended) I've looked for a real Garamond with its long elegant stems and all I've found is some ugly chopped down versions by ITC or such, made not to read well and look beautiful but rather to squeeze more text into the page.
Tor

birdcat wrote on 5/8/2006, 6:02 AM

I believe fonts are licensed on a per printer basis (at least they were). My company does financial printing and we license entire font libraries and pay fees on every printer we will use them on. Possibly the laws have changed with Windows/Mac and their ability to use these fonts on multiple printers but I would be very interested (Spot, you have any ideas) about what would be needed for licensing them legally on TV screens and web presentations.

farss wrote on 5/8/2006, 3:30 PM

I would think you're still correct. If you install the font on the printer then yes you need a licence for every printer. However if you're just sending a rasterised image that contains the font to the printer then you don't need a licence for that printer.
Which is where I'm seeing the bigger issue, under the ruling I quoted bit map copies of fonts aren't copyrightable in the USA but are pretty much every where else. So if we include an image in our videos that contains fonts then we need a licence for all those fonts.
Whilst I seriously doubt this would be persued you never, never know, after all bit map copies of photographs certainly are copyrightable and this has been persued vigorously.
Bob.