8 ms·

Typefaces should not be copyrightable. Print ones are not, it makes no sense that digital ones are.

by alexwennerberg 5y ago

croes 5y ago
Print fonts are copyrightable.
- flowerlad 5y ago
  In the United States, the shapes of typefaces are not eligible for copyright. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protection_of_typefaces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...
  - da_chicken 5y ago
    Ah, so that's how knock-off fonts work. You can reproduce essentially the same output (the typeface) as long as the code that produces it is distinct (the font).
  - croes 5y ago
    But in France and Germany but not Austria despite the Vienna Agreement for the Protection of Type Faces and their International Deposit. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/seldoc/1973/2203.html http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/seldoc/1973/2203.htm...
pkaye 5y ago
The digital one is considered as code. In some countries even the print one has copyright.
mdip 5y ago
> Fonts should not be copyrightable. Print fonts are not, it makes no sense that digital ones are. I agree with your first statement, except that I'm stuck re-wording it to "I wish fonts weren't copyrightable" because I can't find an argument/proper analogy that works. I don't know the details around copyright law, IANAL (surprise!) either, so I'm looking at this from an incredibly naive legal perspective -- that almost everything is copyrightable (in the United States) except for facts. Since copyright law predates digital fonts, you have to look at things they are most like to see what applies (and find a judge to agree, but that part seems to be the simple). Print fonts are not copyrightable. I'm not sure why they're not copyrightable -- were they explicitly excluded (i.e. there's a law on the books that says "Print fonts are not copyrightable"[0]) or were they found to be "like this other thing that is excluded, so they are excluded, too". Then, looking at what's similar about print fonts versus digital ones, there's not really a whole lot other than that they're "concepts" that represent letters in this context. One is chiseled out of some form of metal or strong material, is that size/shape permanently and though there's science/research behind it, for whatever reason, it didn't represent enough of a kind of work to warrant protection. A font has a lot in common on the surface, but underneath it's a program[1]. One could extend that to say "bitmap fonts are so similar to print fonts that they should be excluded" but one cannot say the same for TTF/others and I'd imagine. The bigger problem, though, is that exclusions to copyright are basically never made any longer. This used to be more common, but the entertainment industry's money/power continues to extend copyright in ways that benefit them to the exclusion of other industries -- particularly software -- the large players have a lot of money, so a law that was designed to equally protect invention/creation (really, patent law was by-and-large aimed at helping individual inventors protect their invention/give them a chance to capitalize it against abusive larger competition) ends up helping secure the existing players positions. Now, I don't know if anyone wants Warner Brothers to make Mickey Mouse cartoons, but I suspect there's a less heavy-handed approach to protecting long-held IP while not extending copyright, basically, indefinitely for everything. So yeah, all of that to say "No, I don't think fonts should be copyrightable, either ... but I can say that for so many things and there's so much wrong with Copyright these days that it warrants revisiting a reset/rethink." Maybe one day! [0] It won't be that sentence, it'll be a page worth of explaining why it doesn't fall into the various defined kinds of works. [1] TTF hinting is turing complete.
- kens 5y ago
  To answer your specific question as to why fonts are not copyrightable in the US, 37 C.F.R. § 202.1(e) specifies that a "typeface as typeface" is not copyrightable. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/37/202.1 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/37/202.1
mikedc 5y ago
In the US, "typefaces", ie. the shapes of the letters, generally are not. "Fonts", ie. the programs that draw the letters, are copyrighted as software, as something of a workaround. For more reading on the history here Typographica has a succinct overview[0]. [0] https://typographica.org/on-typography/copyright-protection-of-typefaces/ https://typographica.org/on-typography/copyright-protection-...
- tomrod 5y ago
  Point stands. These ought to not be royalty driven.
  - mikedc 5y ago
    I'm not sure I follow. Whether or not the typeface is eligible for copyright, the pricing model and terms of use are at the discretion of the font creator.
    - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
      "How a font is sold is up to the discretion of the font creator" and "a font should not be sold on a sliding cost scale" aren't mutually exclusive -- the latter's pretty clearly asserting an opinion about reasonable pricing models and terms of use. There are a lot of things people do that they're perfectly within their rights to do that someone else might strongly believe they shouldn't, right? Personally, I don't like the idea of selling fonts with costs governed by web page impressions, either, no matter how common it may be in the industry. I genuinely like having what I consider to be nice typefaces for my web sites, but this kind of licensing makes it incredibly impractical for me to use most commercial options.
      - mikedc 5y ago
        Of course, but the "point" in question is whether a typeface (or font) should be copyrightable.
- alberth 5y ago
dhosek 5y ago
That type designs are not protected is a gross injustice. The time and effort involved in creating a type design is significant. Alas, when the type industry had the resources to lobby to have copyright law changed, they were making a lot of money from stealing each others' designs and chose to lobby the opposite. There was an ill-fated effort in the 90s to lobby for typeface design protection (I was part of it as the editor of a typography magazine) but it never achieved any measurable success.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Igelau 5y ago
  It's not worth the hell that would ensue with people suing each other because their letters look too similar. Letters have to look similar -- that's the whole damn point!
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  That art styles are not protected is a gross injustice. The time and effort involved in creating an art style is significant. Alas, when the art industry had the resources to lobby to have copyright law changed… Type designs not being protected by copyright has benefits, too. Afaik, they're still protected by patent. (Not everything has to be copyright law! That's something the “intellectual property” lobby seems to be wilfully ignoring.)
  - dhosek 5y ago
    A design patent is available, but the bar for a design patent is very high and the income for most type designs is enough to maybe buy a nice dinner for two.¹ Copyright registration is easy and cheap.³ People who argue against type design copyright fall into at least one of three camps: (a) they have no idea what it takes to make a good typeface, (b) their ability to distinguish typefaces doesn't go much farther than distinguishing sans/serif/monospace (if even that), and/or (c) they hope to be able to use other people's designs for their own benefit. 1. Retail sales of typefaces is a ridiculously unprofitable business, which is part of why every nearly independent foundry/type reseller of measurable size is ending up under the umbrella of Monotype Imaging. The handful of designers who have made a living from type design either are employed as staff designers for Adobe/Microsoft/Monotype, do high-value custom designs for publishing clients (although these are becoming increasingly scarce as publishers who still do print are less willing to spend money on quality²) or, the big one but probably gone for good now, embedded fonts in printers (Arthur Baker's deal with HP, he claimed, left him set for life financially). 2. A big part of Font Bureau's early capital came from producing a custom version of Palatino for the gravure pages of Playboy that would match the printed output on the offset pages. There's probably a whole book to be written about the ways in which Hugh Hefner spent Playboy money in ways that nominally benefited the magazine but had a bigger impact in providing cash to artistic endeavors (most notably writers) that wouldn't otherwise see much money. 3. And optional. If registration occurs after an infringement, the copyright holder can only sue for actual damages. Pre-infringement registration also entitles the copyright holder to sue for punitive damages.
amelius 5y ago
From: https://glarts.org/font-and-typeface-legal-tip-sheet/ https://glarts.org/font-and-typeface-legal-tip-sheet/ > In the United States, fonts are protectable under copyright law. Typefaces, however, are not. ... A trademark protects what a typeface is called, a copyright protects how a font program is written, and a design patent protects letter design—how the letters appear. So if I understand this correctly, then unless they have a design patent for the entire range of typefaces, you could use some of the typefaces if you use a different encoding. Perhaps someone with legal background can comment.

Typefaces should not be copyrightable. Print ones are not, it makes no sense that digital ones are.

croes 5y ago

Print fonts are copyrightable.

flowerlad 5y ago
In the United States, the shapes of typefaces are not eligible for copyright. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protection_of_typefaces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...
- da_chicken 5y ago
  Ah, so that's how knock-off fonts work. You can reproduce essentially the same output (the typeface) as long as the code that produces it is distinct (the font).
- croes 5y ago
  But in France and Germany but not Austria despite the Vienna Agreement for the Protection of Type Faces and their International Deposit. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/seldoc/1973/2203.html http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/seldoc/1973/2203.htm...

pkaye 5y ago

The digital one is considered as code. In some countries even the print one has copyright.

mdip 5y ago

> Fonts should not be copyrightable. Print fonts are not, it makes no sense that digital ones are. I agree with your first statement, except that I'm stuck re-wording it to "I wish fonts weren't copyrightable" because I can't find an argument/proper analogy that works. I don't know the details around copyright law, IANAL (surprise!) either, so I'm looking at this from an incredibly naive legal perspective -- that almost everything is copyrightable (in the United States) except for facts. Since copyright law predates digital fonts, you have to look at things they are most like to see what applies (and find a judge to agree, but that part seems to be the simple). Print fonts are not copyrightable. I'm not sure why they're not copyrightable -- were they explicitly excluded (i.e. there's a law on the books that says "Print fonts are not copyrightable"[0]) or were they found to be "like this other thing that is excluded, so they are excluded, too". Then, looking at what's similar about print fonts versus digital ones, there's not really a whole lot other than that they're "concepts" that represent letters in this context. One is chiseled out of some form of metal or strong material, is that size/shape permanently and though there's science/research behind it, for whatever reason, it didn't represent enough of a kind of work to warrant protection. A font has a lot in common on the surface, but underneath it's a program[1]. One could extend that to say "bitmap fonts are so similar to print fonts that they should be excluded" but one cannot say the same for TTF/others and I'd imagine. The bigger problem, though, is that exclusions to copyright are basically never made any longer. This used to be more common, but the entertainment industry's money/power continues to extend copyright in ways that benefit them to the exclusion of other industries -- particularly software -- the large players have a lot of money, so a law that was designed to equally protect invention/creation (really, patent law was by-and-large aimed at helping individual inventors protect their invention/give them a chance to capitalize it against abusive larger competition) ends up helping secure the existing players positions. Now, I don't know if anyone wants Warner Brothers to make Mickey Mouse cartoons, but I suspect there's a less heavy-handed approach to protecting long-held IP while not extending copyright, basically, indefinitely for everything. So yeah, all of that to say "No, I don't think fonts should be copyrightable, either ... but I can say that for so many things and there's so much wrong with Copyright these days that it warrants revisiting a reset/rethink." Maybe one day! [0] It won't be that sentence, it'll be a page worth of explaining why it doesn't fall into the various defined kinds of works. [1] TTF hinting is turing complete.

kens 5y ago
To answer your specific question as to why fonts are not copyrightable in the US, 37 C.F.R. § 202.1(e) specifies that a "typeface as typeface" is not copyrightable. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/37/202.1 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/37/202.1

mikedc 5y ago

In the US, "typefaces", ie. the shapes of the letters, generally are not. "Fonts", ie. the programs that draw the letters, are copyrighted as software, as something of a workaround. For more reading on the history here Typographica has a succinct overview[0]. [0] https://typographica.org/on-typography/copyright-protection-of-typefaces/ https://typographica.org/on-typography/copyright-protection-...

tomrod 5y ago
Point stands. These ought to not be royalty driven.
- mikedc 5y ago
  I'm not sure I follow. Whether or not the typeface is eligible for copyright, the pricing model and terms of use are at the discretion of the font creator.
  - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
    "How a font is sold is up to the discretion of the font creator" and "a font should not be sold on a sliding cost scale" aren't mutually exclusive -- the latter's pretty clearly asserting an opinion about reasonable pricing models and terms of use. There are a lot of things people do that they're perfectly within their rights to do that someone else might strongly believe they shouldn't, right? Personally, I don't like the idea of selling fonts with costs governed by web page impressions, either, no matter how common it may be in the industry. I genuinely like having what I consider to be nice typefaces for my web sites, but this kind of licensing makes it incredibly impractical for me to use most commercial options.
    - mikedc 5y ago
      Of course, but the "point" in question is whether a typeface (or font) should be copyrightable.
alberth 5y ago

dhosek 5y ago

That type designs are not protected is a gross injustice. The time and effort involved in creating a type design is significant. Alas, when the type industry had the resources to lobby to have copyright law changed, they were making a lot of money from stealing each others' designs and chose to lobby the opposite. There was an ill-fated effort in the 90s to lobby for typeface design protection (I was part of it as the editor of a typography magazine) but it never achieved any measurable success.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Igelau 5y ago
It's not worth the hell that would ensue with people suing each other because their letters look too similar. Letters have to look similar -- that's the whole damn point!
wizzwizz4 5y ago
That art styles are not protected is a gross injustice. The time and effort involved in creating an art style is significant. Alas, when the art industry had the resources to lobby to have copyright law changed… Type designs not being protected by copyright has benefits, too. Afaik, they're still protected by patent. (Not everything has to be copyright law! That's something the “intellectual property” lobby seems to be wilfully ignoring.)
- dhosek 5y ago
  A design patent is available, but the bar for a design patent is very high and the income for most type designs is enough to maybe buy a nice dinner for two.¹ Copyright registration is easy and cheap.³ People who argue against type design copyright fall into at least one of three camps: (a) they have no idea what it takes to make a good typeface, (b) their ability to distinguish typefaces doesn't go much farther than distinguishing sans/serif/monospace (if even that), and/or (c) they hope to be able to use other people's designs for their own benefit. 1. Retail sales of typefaces is a ridiculously unprofitable business, which is part of why every nearly independent foundry/type reseller of measurable size is ending up under the umbrella of Monotype Imaging. The handful of designers who have made a living from type design either are employed as staff designers for Adobe/Microsoft/Monotype, do high-value custom designs for publishing clients (although these are becoming increasingly scarce as publishers who still do print are less willing to spend money on quality²) or, the big one but probably gone for good now, embedded fonts in printers (Arthur Baker's deal with HP, he claimed, left him set for life financially). 2. A big part of Font Bureau's early capital came from producing a custom version of Palatino for the gravure pages of Playboy that would match the printed output on the offset pages. There's probably a whole book to be written about the ways in which Hugh Hefner spent Playboy money in ways that nominally benefited the magazine but had a bigger impact in providing cash to artistic endeavors (most notably writers) that wouldn't otherwise see much money. 3. And optional. If registration occurs after an infringement, the copyright holder can only sue for actual damages. Pre-infringement registration also entitles the copyright holder to sue for punitive damages.

amelius 5y ago

From: https://glarts.org/font-and-typeface-legal-tip-sheet/ https://glarts.org/font-and-typeface-legal-tip-sheet/ > In the United States, fonts are protectable under copyright law. Typefaces, however, are not. ... A trademark protects what a typeface is called, a copyright protects how a font program is written, and a design patent protects letter design—how the letters appear. So if I understand this correctly, then unless they have a design patent for the entire range of typefaces, you could use some of the typefaces if you use a different encoding. Perhaps someone with legal background can comment.