4 ms·

It looks OK from the specimens, Neue Haas Grotesk is still the best Helvetica IMO ... Font licensing is immoral rent seeking that takes advantage of a legal l

It looks OK from the specimens, Neue Haas Grotesk is still the best Helvetica IMO ... Font licensing is immoral rent seeking that takes advantage of a legal loophole and goes against the spirit of the law in major countries (typefaces are ineligible for copyright in at least the US and Japan), and I'm always disheartened by how many individual designers and companies have fallen for it.

asciident 8y ago
Can you say more about this?
- rangibaby 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protection_of_typefaces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti... > Typefaces cannot be protected by copyright in the United States (Code of Federal Regulations, Ch 37, Sec. 202.1(e); Eltra Corp. vs. Ringer). The idea that typefaces (rather than fonts, which are computer software) cannot be copyrighted in the United States is black letter law. 37 C.F.R. § 202.1(e). Under U.S. law, typefaces and their letter forms or glyphs are considered utilitarian objects whose public utility outweighs any private interest in protecting their creative elements. However, there is a distinction between a font and a typeface. The machine code used to display a stylized typeface (called a font) is protectable as copyright. In 1992, the US Copyright Office determined that digital outline fonts had elements that could be protected as software. Since that time, the Office has accepted registration of copyright for digital vector fonts, such as PostScript Type 1, TrueType, and OpenType format files. TL;DR "On a computer, a typeface isn't a typeface so you have to pay us for it" c.f. Apple and rounded corners, Mickey Mouse...
  - anbop 8y ago
    Then why isn't every high profile font from Hoefler etc. immediately cloned by a generic competitor?
    - brianpgordon 8y ago
      I imagine it's a lot of work to reverse engineer all of the variants and all of the characters and all of the kerning rules etc. And then you can't advertise because the original name that everyone knows is trademarked.
      - setr 8y ago
        >And then you can't advertise because the original name that everyone knows is trademarked. Does that stop any counterfeit? You get it close enough, get the content visible and tank the price, and the name doesn’t stop squat. And ofc naturally counterfeit markets spring up, where consumers go specifically with intent to purchase the fake (at severe discount), completely sidestepping the naming/marketing issue
    - eps 8y ago
      A while ago there was a case when the guy behind Maven Pro produced a very nice font that felt vaguely like Whitney. Lo and behold, not two days after he delisted it. When pressed for reasons, he said he got a letter from Hoefler himself on how one cannot get insipired by other people's work, chided him for being unoriginal and implied dire legal consequences of not taking it down immediately. Mind you, the point of contention was a _feel_ of the font.
      - anbop 8y ago
        Do you have a link? Would love to read up more.
    - rntz 8y ago
      You can find illicit copies of almost every font online for free if you know where to look. I suspect that puts a bit of a damper on the "generic clones" market strategy, since folks who _really_ want a cheaper alternative can get one for free. Also, font companies are big and can threaten legal action, and even the threat of legal action can put people off, even if US law makes the font letter-shapes themselves not copyrightable.
  - ovao 8y ago
    It's a common misconception that fonts are only the implementation of typefaces on computers. The specific weights and sizes of glyphs that comprise a font apply both to traditional typesetting and in its digital form. A font file is more akin to a photograph than to the environment of which the photo is taken, so it's not clear why the morality of licensing photos and fonts would apply any differently.
    - rangibaby 8y ago
      > A font file is more akin to a photograph than to the environment of which the photo is taken, so it's not clear why the morality of licensing photos and fonts would apply any differently. See Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. Sorry in advance if I misunderstood your point
    - zuminator 8y ago
      Fonts are not like photos, they have hinting and kerning and conditional code that distinguishes a high quality font from crap. The glyph substitution table in OpenType fonts is of such complexity that it's been shown to be Turing complete. [https://litherum.blogspot.com/2019/03/addition-font.html https://litherum.blogspot.com/2019/03/addition-font.html]
      - NullPrefix 8y ago
        Did you just called monospaced fonts crap?
        erik_seaberg 8y ago
        Not sure about kerning, but monospace fonts do have hinting so that rasterizing any size still works without big aliasing and weight problems.
      - ovao 8y ago
        I wasn’t arguing that fonts are more or less complex than photos, but that from the perspective of implementation and/or copyright, fonts are more like photos (which are implicitly under copyright in the U.S.) than the subject of a photo (like, say, a pasture, a person or a horse). In other words, a font is the specific representation of the concept, idea and qualities that define a typeface, as a photo is a representation of the qualities of its subject.
  - iagooar 8y ago
    So in the US you cannot patent a typeface, but you can patent software... Doesn't seem very logical to me.
warpspin 8y ago
I'd happily license more (web)fonts if more of them would be available with perpetual licenses without display volume licensing. At the moment, I'm basically required to include traffic trackers for many of the best fonts.

asciident 8y ago

Can you say more about this?

rangibaby 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protection_of_typefaces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti... > Typefaces cannot be protected by copyright in the United States (Code of Federal Regulations, Ch 37, Sec. 202.1(e); Eltra Corp. vs. Ringer). The idea that typefaces (rather than fonts, which are computer software) cannot be copyrighted in the United States is black letter law. 37 C.F.R. § 202.1(e). Under U.S. law, typefaces and their letter forms or glyphs are considered utilitarian objects whose public utility outweighs any private interest in protecting their creative elements. However, there is a distinction between a font and a typeface. The machine code used to display a stylized typeface (called a font) is protectable as copyright. In 1992, the US Copyright Office determined that digital outline fonts had elements that could be protected as software. Since that time, the Office has accepted registration of copyright for digital vector fonts, such as PostScript Type 1, TrueType, and OpenType format files. TL;DR "On a computer, a typeface isn't a typeface so you have to pay us for it" c.f. Apple and rounded corners, Mickey Mouse...
- anbop 8y ago
  Then why isn't every high profile font from Hoefler etc. immediately cloned by a generic competitor?
  - brianpgordon 8y ago
    I imagine it's a lot of work to reverse engineer all of the variants and all of the characters and all of the kerning rules etc. And then you can't advertise because the original name that everyone knows is trademarked.
    - setr 8y ago
      >And then you can't advertise because the original name that everyone knows is trademarked. Does that stop any counterfeit? You get it close enough, get the content visible and tank the price, and the name doesn’t stop squat. And ofc naturally counterfeit markets spring up, where consumers go specifically with intent to purchase the fake (at severe discount), completely sidestepping the naming/marketing issue
  - eps 8y ago
    A while ago there was a case when the guy behind Maven Pro produced a very nice font that felt vaguely like Whitney. Lo and behold, not two days after he delisted it. When pressed for reasons, he said he got a letter from Hoefler himself on how one cannot get insipired by other people's work, chided him for being unoriginal and implied dire legal consequences of not taking it down immediately. Mind you, the point of contention was a _feel_ of the font.
    - anbop 8y ago
      Do you have a link? Would love to read up more.
  - rntz 8y ago
    You can find illicit copies of almost every font online for free if you know where to look. I suspect that puts a bit of a damper on the "generic clones" market strategy, since folks who _really_ want a cheaper alternative can get one for free. Also, font companies are big and can threaten legal action, and even the threat of legal action can put people off, even if US law makes the font letter-shapes themselves not copyrightable.
- ovao 8y ago
  It's a common misconception that fonts are only the implementation of typefaces on computers. The specific weights and sizes of glyphs that comprise a font apply both to traditional typesetting and in its digital form. A font file is more akin to a photograph than to the environment of which the photo is taken, so it's not clear why the morality of licensing photos and fonts would apply any differently.
  - rangibaby 8y ago
    > A font file is more akin to a photograph than to the environment of which the photo is taken, so it's not clear why the morality of licensing photos and fonts would apply any differently. See Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. Sorry in advance if I misunderstood your point
  - zuminator 8y ago
    Fonts are not like photos, they have hinting and kerning and conditional code that distinguishes a high quality font from crap. The glyph substitution table in OpenType fonts is of such complexity that it's been shown to be Turing complete. [https://litherum.blogspot.com/2019/03/addition-font.html https://litherum.blogspot.com/2019/03/addition-font.html]
    - NullPrefix 8y ago
      Did you just called monospaced fonts crap?
      - erik_seaberg 8y ago
        Not sure about kerning, but monospace fonts do have hinting so that rasterizing any size still works without big aliasing and weight problems.
    - ovao 8y ago
      I wasn’t arguing that fonts are more or less complex than photos, but that from the perspective of implementation and/or copyright, fonts are more like photos (which are implicitly under copyright in the U.S.) than the subject of a photo (like, say, a pasture, a person or a horse). In other words, a font is the specific representation of the concept, idea and qualities that define a typeface, as a photo is a representation of the qualities of its subject.
- iagooar 8y ago
  So in the US you cannot patent a typeface, but you can patent software... Doesn't seem very logical to me.

warpspin 8y ago

I'd happily license more (web)fonts if more of them would be available with perpetual licenses without display volume licensing. At the moment, I'm basically required to include traffic trackers for many of the best fonts.