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I'm sure you know this, but for others: This is a cost-saving move. It's always more economical for a company of Twitter's size to develop their own font becau

I'm sure you know this, but for others: This is a cost-saving move. It's always more economical for a company of Twitter's size to develop their own font because 1) Then they don't have to pay per-use licensing fees, which are huge at the billion user scale, and 2) a peculiarity of copyright law means that the actual shapes of the letters aren't actually protectable by copyright -- you can copy an existing font virtually 100%, tweak a thing or two, and legally call it your own.

zinekeller 5y ago
> a peculiarity of copyright law means that the actual shapes of the letters aren't actually protectable by copyright Warning: offer not applicable in UK and most countries in EEA. They have the concept of protecting designs there. Japan excludes most designs of fonts because of its utilitarian use BUT if the font (technically typeface) is distinctive and used in a way that can be defended as an artistic choice, it's protected under copyright.
kn0where 5y ago
They were using built in system fonts on each platform before.
- hammyhavoc 5y ago
  I would very much like to return to this sunshine state of mind.
davmar 5y ago
I don't think this is accurate. If they're just specifying a font (e.g. 'Helvetica') in their CSS, it's loaded from the users' machine and doesn't cost anything. Otherwise every site on the internet would be paying fees for fonts. I could be wrong. Please inform me if I am.
- maccolgan 5y ago
  That's obviously true for system-provided fonts but fonts like Helvetica Neue aren't typically available on any platform by default and has to be loaded in...
jchw 5y ago
> a peculiarity of copyright law means that the actual shapes of the letters aren't actually protectable by copyright -- you can copy an existing font virtually 100%, tweak a thing or two, and legally call it your own. IANAL but this is only true in some jurisdictions, primarily the US and Japan. Also, I don’t think it’s quite that simple either. The actual type face may not be eligible for copyright, but the computer code describing the particular curves and hinting rules and etc. is. So I think you can’t just trivially copy a font and modify it and call it your own.
- LocalH 5y ago
  By “copy a font” they likely mean recreating it. If one is working from a printed specimen in the US, such activity is legal.

zinekeller 5y ago

> a peculiarity of copyright law means that the actual shapes of the letters aren't actually protectable by copyright Warning: offer not applicable in UK and most countries in EEA. They have the concept of protecting designs there. Japan excludes most designs of fonts because of its utilitarian use BUT if the font (technically typeface) is distinctive and used in a way that can be defended as an artistic choice, it's protected under copyright.

kn0where 5y ago

They were using built in system fonts on each platform before.

hammyhavoc 5y ago
I would very much like to return to this sunshine state of mind.

davmar 5y ago

I don't think this is accurate. If they're just specifying a font (e.g. 'Helvetica') in their CSS, it's loaded from the users' machine and doesn't cost anything. Otherwise every site on the internet would be paying fees for fonts. I could be wrong. Please inform me if I am.

maccolgan 5y ago
That's obviously true for system-provided fonts but fonts like Helvetica Neue aren't typically available on any platform by default and has to be loaded in...

jchw 5y ago

> a peculiarity of copyright law means that the actual shapes of the letters aren't actually protectable by copyright -- you can copy an existing font virtually 100%, tweak a thing or two, and legally call it your own. IANAL but this is only true in some jurisdictions, primarily the US and Japan. Also, I don’t think it’s quite that simple either. The actual type face may not be eligible for copyright, but the computer code describing the particular curves and hinting rules and etc. is. So I think you can’t just trivially copy a font and modify it and call it your own.

LocalH 5y ago
By “copy a font” they likely mean recreating it. If one is working from a printed specimen in the US, such activity is legal.