5 ms·

How come these old typefaces like Helvetica and Gill Sans not in the public domain? The article mentions Helvetica being rolled in with one of Monotype’s purch

How come these old typefaces like Helvetica and Gill Sans not in the public domain? The article mentions Helvetica being rolled in with one of Monotype’s purchases yet Helvetica is from the 1940s? Hard copies of Shakespeare have individual copyright because of their unique prefaces. Are these typefaces in copyright still because of the individual numerical descriptions being the work under protection, rather than the actual shape? Is it something similar to How X’s recording of Bach’s Y concerto with The Z Ensemble is in copyright, but the musical score itself is in the public domain?

kstrauser 3y ago
That last bit is my understanding: the typefaces are public domain, but the font files that describe them are protected.
calgarymicro 3y ago
It looks like[0] as of the start of this year, only works made in 1927 or earlier are in the public domain. Copyright terms have regularly been extended by Congress and they are astoundingly long now. [0]https://copyrightlately.com/public-domain-day-2023/ https://copyrightlately.com/public-domain-day-2023/
- arrosenberg 3y ago
  Also known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act Thanks to Disney, this aspect of our economy and culture is completely broken.
  - HideousKojima 3y ago
    Cher gets a good chunk of the blame too
    - fsckboy 3y ago
      Sonny gets blame for the copyright extension act, but Cher's royalties lawsuit is not unreasonable or copying rights related... or did I misunderstand or miss something?
  - secabeen 3y ago
    > Copyright terms have regularly been extended by Congress and they are astoundingly long now. There has been no appetite for extending terms in recent years, and things are entering the public domain again, including _Steamboat Willie_. I think there is an understanding that the CTEA will end up as the final extension and that further extensions are unlikely.
    - Vt71fcAqt7 3y ago
      They extended it to be in line with the Berne Convention of Europe. It won't happen as easily again because there is no precedent for longer terms.
    - kibibu 3y ago
      I have a suspicion that this is why steamboat willy has been in the Disney intro for the last few years - so it can be a trademark (which don't have expiry dates)
tptacek 3y ago
The font files themselves are copyrighted. The underlying typeface --- the shapes of the letters themselves --- are not, so you could I suppose draw your own Helvetica. But you wouldn't be able to call it "Helvetica", because that's a trademark.
- harles 3y ago
  IANAL, but this is what design patents are for. They’re much shorter though - 15 years it looks like for fonts [0]. [0]: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/my-word-design-patents-on-a-typeface-4319019/ https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/my-word-design-patents-on-...
- crazygringo 3y ago
  I've still never entirely understood why nobody's written a program to rasterize paid fonts at 10000 dpi and then run the bitmap through an automatic vectorization tool to create a legally free and redistributable version that is visually indistinguishable from the original (literally off by rounding errors). The only thing missing would be hinting, but on retina displays and modern laser printers that's much less important than it used to be -- and you can always implement automatic hinting. And it's easy to extract kerning pairs as well. I'm not saying this would be good for font creators or society. I'm just wondering why it hasn't become a common thing, when it doesn't seem like it's actually illegal.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    Just a guess here: (1) It's a lot of work. (2) You'd get sued anyways and then have to explain to a jury the distinction between your vectorized raster and the original vectors --- I agree that a graphical interpretation of, effectively, a photograph of a curve is not the same thing as that curve, but it's a subtle point. (3) Most importantly: it just doesn't matter enough. Universally "important" fonts (Helvetica, say) have widely-used liberally-licensed alternatives, but if you want Hoefler Whitney, you want the real Hoefler Whitney, for the same non-pragmatic reason that you'd want a real pair of D&G Daymasters.
    - deleted 3y ago
_cenw 3y ago
Because you're not buying Helvetica, but a digital variant of it. It's like a performance of classical music. Also Helvetica specifically is from 1957, so it may not in the public domain yet (depending on location). There are actually several variants all named Helvetica, which is why it's a really bad font to put into your CSS font stack if you're not delivering it yourself. Newer variants tend to use other names (e.g. Neue Haas Grotesk).
gadders 3y ago
Eric Gill is another of those situations where you need to separate the art from the artist: https://amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/apr/09/eric-gill-the-body-ditchling-exhibition-rachel-cooke https://amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/apr/09/eric-gi...
sgc 3y ago
To specify about your Shakespeare example, the hard copies are most definitely not under copyright as a whole. At least in the US, only the new, copyrightable material in them can be copyrighted. If it is not novel enough to be copyrightable on its own (like page numbers, titles, etc), it can't be copyrighted. Frankly there are a lot of things that people and companies claim copyright on, and other people pay them for, that are not legally under copyright at all. But it is survival of the richest out there...

kstrauser 3y ago

That last bit is my understanding: the typefaces are public domain, but the font files that describe them are protected.

calgarymicro 3y ago

It looks like[0] as of the start of this year, only works made in 1927 or earlier are in the public domain. Copyright terms have regularly been extended by Congress and they are astoundingly long now. [0]https://copyrightlately.com/public-domain-day-2023/ https://copyrightlately.com/public-domain-day-2023/

arrosenberg 3y ago
Also known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act Thanks to Disney, this aspect of our economy and culture is completely broken.
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  Cher gets a good chunk of the blame too
  - fsckboy 3y ago
    Sonny gets blame for the copyright extension act, but Cher's royalties lawsuit is not unreasonable or copying rights related... or did I misunderstand or miss something?
- secabeen 3y ago
  > Copyright terms have regularly been extended by Congress and they are astoundingly long now. There has been no appetite for extending terms in recent years, and things are entering the public domain again, including _Steamboat Willie_. I think there is an understanding that the CTEA will end up as the final extension and that further extensions are unlikely.
  - Vt71fcAqt7 3y ago
    They extended it to be in line with the Berne Convention of Europe. It won't happen as easily again because there is no precedent for longer terms.
  - kibibu 3y ago
    I have a suspicion that this is why steamboat willy has been in the Disney intro for the last few years - so it can be a trademark (which don't have expiry dates)

tptacek 3y ago

The font files themselves are copyrighted. The underlying typeface --- the shapes of the letters themselves --- are not, so you could I suppose draw your own Helvetica. But you wouldn't be able to call it "Helvetica", because that's a trademark.

harles 3y ago
IANAL, but this is what design patents are for. They’re much shorter though - 15 years it looks like for fonts [0]. [0]: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/my-word-design-patents-on-a-typeface-4319019/ https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/my-word-design-patents-on-...
crazygringo 3y ago
I've still never entirely understood why nobody's written a program to rasterize paid fonts at 10000 dpi and then run the bitmap through an automatic vectorization tool to create a legally free and redistributable version that is visually indistinguishable from the original (literally off by rounding errors). The only thing missing would be hinting, but on retina displays and modern laser printers that's much less important than it used to be -- and you can always implement automatic hinting. And it's easy to extract kerning pairs as well. I'm not saying this would be good for font creators or society. I'm just wondering why it hasn't become a common thing, when it doesn't seem like it's actually illegal.
- tptacek 3y ago
  Just a guess here: (1) It's a lot of work. (2) You'd get sued anyways and then have to explain to a jury the distinction between your vectorized raster and the original vectors --- I agree that a graphical interpretation of, effectively, a photograph of a curve is not the same thing as that curve, but it's a subtle point. (3) Most importantly: it just doesn't matter enough. Universally "important" fonts (Helvetica, say) have widely-used liberally-licensed alternatives, but if you want Hoefler Whitney, you want the real Hoefler Whitney, for the same non-pragmatic reason that you'd want a real pair of D&G Daymasters.
  - deleted 3y ago

_cenw 3y ago

Because you're not buying Helvetica, but a digital variant of it. It's like a performance of classical music. Also Helvetica specifically is from 1957, so it may not in the public domain yet (depending on location). There are actually several variants all named Helvetica, which is why it's a really bad font to put into your CSS font stack if you're not delivering it yourself. Newer variants tend to use other names (e.g. Neue Haas Grotesk).

gadders 3y ago

Eric Gill is another of those situations where you need to separate the art from the artist: https://amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/apr/09/eric-gill-the-body-ditchling-exhibition-rachel-cooke https://amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/apr/09/eric-gi...

sgc 3y ago

To specify about your Shakespeare example, the hard copies are most definitely not under copyright as a whole. At least in the US, only the new, copyrightable material in them can be copyrighted. If it is not novel enough to be copyrightable on its own (like page numbers, titles, etc), it can't be copyrighted. Frankly there are a lot of things that people and companies claim copyright on, and other people pay them for, that are not legally under copyright at all. But it is survival of the richest out there...