4 ms·
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
by 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 agoRequiring 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 agoAdditional 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 agoThat 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.