3 ms·

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.