3 ms·

> It's kind of a dick move for an agency to be ripping off the foundries, especially small modern ones. Creatives do enjoy what typographers make and can see th

> It's kind of a dick move for an agency to be ripping off the foundries, especially small modern ones. Creatives do enjoy what typographers make and can see the love put into their craft. But foundries sometimes do the same: they take samples of, say, 18th century font, and digitize it, and claim copyright. Do you think it is fair when someone copies Helvetica or 19th century Bookman [1] ? [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/ru-ru/typography/font-list/bookman-old-style https://learn.microsoft.com/ru-ru/typography/font-list/bookm...

sleepybrett 3y ago
Type from the 18th century or earlier (pre film/digital) is imperfect. Not every 12 pt 'm' slug in that font drawer is identical, and not every imprint from the same 'm' slug in that book is identical. It is a lot of work to create digital versions of these metal/wood typefaces.
- quitit 3y ago
  This segues beautifully into a longer discussion about visual acuity testing charts. It's relevant because even today many VA charts still feature the historical numbering systems which are deeply inconsistent from eye chart to eye chart. (The reason why this fault is of no concern is because in modern use, they are only stated to infer a vague acuity.)
cschmidt 3y ago
Historical revivals are hardly the same thing. They often end up far from the original, and require a ton of work. It isn't just a matter of digitization. And they "claim copyright" on their derived work, not the original. With fonts they really just copyright the name.
- jrockway 3y ago
  Requiring a ton of work doesn't really matter one way or the other for copyright. Mowing the lawn is a ton of work. Doing the work doesn't let you prevent other people from mowing their lawn to the same height as yours.
  - hn_acker 3y ago
    Additional information on this point: "Sweat of the brow" [1] is a doctrine which grants copyright on a work due to the time and effort the author put into making it. The US Supreme Court rejected this doctrine, meaning that only the creative aspects of a work are relevant to copyright. For that reason, in the US, a phone book is not copyrightable unless the arrangement of its contents is creative [2]. The EU narrowly rejects "sweat of the brow" copyright for recreations of public domain visual art [1]. I have no idea whether the same applies to font faces, public domain non-visual art, or phone books, but I'm assuming that it doesn't. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R....
  - cschmidt 3y ago
    That work I was referring to is a creative, artistic process of designing a font based on a historical starting point. That does matter. Hardly mowing the lawn or compiling a phone book.
kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
They're not just scanning existing glyphs. They're performing copyrightable work to add de novo metadata like hinting and kerning.
quitit 3y ago
I don't feel your example is comparable here, but I'm interested in hearing maybe a different one that conveys your ideas better. The reason for my thinking is that I don't see the problem in a foundry today building a font from a typeface that is neither commercially available, nor under any protection (or potentially even ownership). To me this is not comparable to dodging licensing fees from another foundry that is licensing a font. I actually feel that this foundry would be doing the design world a service by ensuring that pre-computing typefaces are adapted for modern use. Factually this process occurs frequently without controversy. As for claiming copyright: There is a significant amount of non-trivial work involved into building such a font, including a number of creative decisions that the typographer will need to make to address shortcomings as well as fleshing out the wealth of missing characters that are commonplace in contemporary publishing.

sleepybrett 3y ago

Type from the 18th century or earlier (pre film/digital) is imperfect. Not every 12 pt 'm' slug in that font drawer is identical, and not every imprint from the same 'm' slug in that book is identical. It is a lot of work to create digital versions of these metal/wood typefaces.

quitit 3y ago
This segues beautifully into a longer discussion about visual acuity testing charts. It's relevant because even today many VA charts still feature the historical numbering systems which are deeply inconsistent from eye chart to eye chart. (The reason why this fault is of no concern is because in modern use, they are only stated to infer a vague acuity.)

cschmidt 3y ago

Historical revivals are hardly the same thing. They often end up far from the original, and require a ton of work. It isn't just a matter of digitization. And they "claim copyright" on their derived work, not the original. With fonts they really just copyright the name.

jrockway 3y ago
Requiring a ton of work doesn't really matter one way or the other for copyright. Mowing the lawn is a ton of work. Doing the work doesn't let you prevent other people from mowing their lawn to the same height as yours.
- hn_acker 3y ago
  Additional information on this point: "Sweat of the brow" [1] is a doctrine which grants copyright on a work due to the time and effort the author put into making it. The US Supreme Court rejected this doctrine, meaning that only the creative aspects of a work are relevant to copyright. For that reason, in the US, a phone book is not copyrightable unless the arrangement of its contents is creative [2]. The EU narrowly rejects "sweat of the brow" copyright for recreations of public domain visual art [1]. I have no idea whether the same applies to font faces, public domain non-visual art, or phone books, but I'm assuming that it doesn't. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R....
- cschmidt 3y ago
  That work I was referring to is a creative, artistic process of designing a font based on a historical starting point. That does matter. Hardly mowing the lawn or compiling a phone book.

kevin_thibedeau 3y ago

They're not just scanning existing glyphs. They're performing copyrightable work to add de novo metadata like hinting and kerning.

quitit 3y ago

I don't feel your example is comparable here, but I'm interested in hearing maybe a different one that conveys your ideas better. The reason for my thinking is that I don't see the problem in a foundry today building a font from a typeface that is neither commercially available, nor under any protection (or potentially even ownership). To me this is not comparable to dodging licensing fees from another foundry that is licensing a font. I actually feel that this foundry would be doing the design world a service by ensuring that pre-computing typefaces are adapted for modern use. Factually this process occurs frequently without controversy. As for claiming copyright: There is a significant amount of non-trivial work involved into building such a font, including a number of creative decisions that the typographer will need to make to address shortcomings as well as fleshing out the wealth of missing characters that are commonplace in contemporary publishing.