7 ms·
Hellvetica.ttf – Kern in Hell
- trothamel 7y agoI never thought I'd get to see if a font could be fair use due to the parody exemption - but I'd suspect there would be a good chance that this is the case.
- jchw 7y agoIn the US, typefaces themselves are not subject to copyright law (though that doesn’t mean ‘font piracy’ is legal - the ‘computer code’ backing a font is still copyrightable - but you could presumably extract the outlines and replicate a font exactly without running afoul of U.S. copyright law.) (disclaimer: IANAL)
- planteen 7y agoA rasterized (imaged) font is not copyright-able. However the vector control points are considered a creative work and therefore subject to copyright. This was established in Adobe v. Southern Software: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Systems,_Inc._v._Southern_Software,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Systems,_Inc._v._Souther.... So even stripping out the hinting and OTF shaping "computer code" would still presumably leave you in violation of a font copyright.
- smrq 7y agoWhat a bizarre ruling -- like saying that a parabola is not copyrightable, but three points defining a parabola are (because one could express the same parabola using many combinations of three points). Surely, then, one could write a program to generate a copyright-free copy of a font by selecting different control points that yield the same curves. Or would the computer be the copyright-holder, as it selected those points?
- Filligree 7y ago> Surely, then, one could write a program to generate a copyright-free copy of a font by selecting different control points that yield the same curves. Or would the computer be the copyright-holder, as it selected those points? The new three points would be derived from the old ones; hence it's still a derived work, and still falls under the old copyright. Your bits have the wrong color.[1] 1: https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
- gowld 7y agoWhy would that argument apply to alternate point-triples, but not to rendered parabolas?
- paulddraper 7y agoBecause a font is parabolas, not point-triples.
- ars 7y agoOnly if it's directly derived from the TTF file itself. But if you rasterized the font (and as a specific representation of the front, it no longer has a copyright), and then had a computer generate curves from that, you'd be fine. But from my understanding the hard part is creating the file that does a good job at every different font size. Creating a font for just 1 size is relatively easy. So your computer would be doing the easy part, not the valuable part.
- fwip 7y agoI have a hard time imagining a judge taking a sympathetic ear to this defense. Do you happen to know if there's relevant existing case law on this subject that you could point me to?
- ars 7y agoI don't have case law, but there are tons of fonts that explicitly say they are based on a copyrighted one: * libre baskerville * Liberation Mono is a sans-serif font metrically equivalent to Courier New * Liberation Serif is metrically equivalent to Times New Roman. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts Arial is based on Helvetica and we created specifically because of copyright on Helvetica.
- paulddraper 7y agoWow. That means you can take a vector font (copyrighted) and convert that to a rasterized font (non-copyrighted). If you take that non-copyrighted rasterized font and produce a vector font from it, I presume that product falls under the original copyright?
- ars 7y agoYes. Which is why the DRM in .EOT was so bizarre. Images are also copyrighted, but no one is adding DRM to them. Even with .OTF, IE only is willing to use them if they have their "evil bit" set in a particular way. Font companies are desperate to convince everyone they have more copyright than they actually do. > If you take that non-copyrighted rasterized font and produce a vector font from it, I presume that product falls under the original copyright? No, the new product (font file) is copyrighted to you.
- coconutrandom 7y agoIf anyone is interested in automating it, I wrote up quick howto in Python a few days ago. https://readevalprint.com/Schmelvetica.html https://readevalprint.com/Schmelvetica.html
- app4soft 7y agoWhy fonts extension is .TTC? ORIGINAL_FONT_PATH = "path/to/Helvetica.ttc" GLORIOUS_FONT_PATH = "path/to/Schmelvetica.ttc"
- danaliv 7y agoA TTC is a TrueType Collection. Multiple fonts in one file. Instead of having separate files for every size, weight, etc. they’re combined into one. The major advantage is the ability to share glyphs between fonts instead of duplicating information in each file.
- coconutrandom 7y agoAh yes, ".ttf" will work just the same.
- JoshTriplett 7y agoThis is awesome. I'm just sad that this doesn't kern r and n towards each other, to produce the classic misread "keming".
- ThePadawan 7y agoTitle should read .ttf, right? Or am I being Mandela'd.
- huac 7y agoVery similar to smelvetica (https://github.com/tholman/smelvetica https://github.com/tholman/smelvetica) which did get takedown notices from Monotype.
- gouggoug 7y agoInterestingly the commit history wasn't amended [0], so it is still technically possible to download smelvetica. [0] https://github.com/tholman/smelvetica/commit/83eadad7edf187889c34176cb357fde974a6907b https://github.com/tholman/smelvetica/commit/83eadad7edf1878...
- jjoonathan 7y agoGiven that Monotype has a nonzero chance of browsing this thread, are you sure this is a fact you want to publicly draw attention to?
- enriquto 7y agomany of us have already saved it. If they go full-streisand on that, so good!
- jjoonathan 7y agoRight, but the author made his intentions and wishes clear, and I feel like publicly drawing attention to him in this manner disrespects those intentions and wishes.
- gouggoug 7y agoThis is the Internet and it's bound to happen. If not me, someone else would have, and probably already, pointed it out. I'm also not sure what you are referring to with "the author made his intentions and wishes clear", but think my pointing out of the git history has nothing to do with it. Thinking my comment is in any way going to influence the fate of this repository seems a bit far fetched.
- oflannabhra 7y agoI'm a bit disappointed that it doesn't include an "rn" = "m" kerning mistake... my favorite and one that is already kind of an issue in Helvetica (and also can happen in the word "kern" itself, ie "kern" = "kem")
- rocqua 7y agoThis joke is the basis of the subreddit /r/keming which is about kerning mistakes.
- rini17 7y agoAnd thanks to hellvetica, some people in /r/keming today got the joke :)
- paulddraper 7y agoWow, that is hard to read on my screen :)
- joefkelley 7y ago"keming" is the only one-word joke I know of. Wondering if anyone is aware of any others.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ryanmcbride 7y agoThe kerning subreddit is r/keming and it gives me a chuckle each time.
- MisterOctober 7y ago"I cannot strike at wretched kerns..." - MacDuff in _Macbeth_
- mercer 7y agoCan't think of others, but I'll point you to the google search results for the word "keming" to expand on the joke. (think this only works via proper google.com)
- semiotagonal 7y agoIt kinda reminds me of the Bayeux Tapestry, where the letters have to be spaced around people's heads.
- _Codemonkeyism 7y agoReminds me of a book I've once had "End of Print".
- Sohcahtoa82 7y agoThanks I hate it.
- bluehazed 7y agoI've never had a font make me laugh so hard.
- jonathankoren 7y agoI one time saw a sign with intentionally bad kerning in the design department at work that said something like, "This sign makes designers very angry." I was admiring the joke, when the the VP of design saw me smiling at it, and said, "Thank you! You have no idea how many people look at that sign and just don't get it."
- ashton314 7y agoLol. Did he offer you a job at that point? Sounds kind of like a puzzle to find designers for hire.
- stjohnswarts 7y agoIt turns out that jonathankoren is the CEO, and. now. you. know. . . . the rest of the story
- aj7 7y agoI’d just as soon can my own shit.
- ArtifTh 7y agoThis also need to have somehow broken hinting instructions so it would render blurry with rainbow edges on a screen.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bigred100 7y agoI don’t understand this. Can someone explain the typing joke to me?
- haste410 7y agoKerning is the amount of spacing between letters. Type with poorly applied kerning is a long standing joke as a way to annoy a designer. Font files can have the amount of kerning between letter pairs built in. This font is Helvetica with very poor kerning built in. It's "hell" for people who care about kerning.
- bigred100 7y agoThanks.
- fabioborellini 7y agoI don't see anything odd there. I am using Linux.
- ObscureScience 7y agoThat how my linux terminals, ex. st or alacritty look when I type the wrong string when specifying a font in the configs ;)