5 ms·
IANAL but according to Wikipedia[1], typeface (and rasterization of the typeface) is not copyrightable although the font file do: > Under U.S. law, typefaces a
by sirn 15y ago
IANAL but according to Wikipedia[1], typeface (and rasterization of the typeface) is not copyrightable although the font file do:
> Under U.S. law, typefaces and the characters they contain are considered to be utilitarian objects whose utility outweighs any merit that may exist in protecting their creative elements. As such, typefaces are exempt from copyright protection in the United States. However, this finding was limited in Adobe Systems, Inc. v. Southern Software, Inc., wherein it was held that scalable computer fonts, i.e., the instructions necessary to render a typeface, constitute a "computer program" for the purposes of copyright law and hence are subject to protection. Hence the computer file(s) associated with a scalable font will generally be protected even though the specific design of the characters is not. Furthermore, a rasterized representation (e.g. bitmap) of the characters in a scalable font is not protected by copyright in the United States.
According to this, the author will have to create his font by directly modifying the original font file to make it a derived work. Since his font is created from rasterized representation, the resulting font file is not considered a derived work. But again, IANAL.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protection_of_typefaces http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protectio...
- mistercow 15y agoInteresting, but by that reasoning, couldn't I legally copy any font (and have it legally be my own work) simply be rasterizing it at a sufficiently large size and then vectorizing the result?
- sirn 15y agoI wonder about that too, I tried to find such information regarding this but couldn't found any.
- _delirium 15y agoThat's more or less how contemporary font clones are made. Rasterize, use auto-tracing software to produce new font curves, done. You can't directly copy any embedded programs from the original, such as hinting or kerning code, though. Kerning often ends up being tweaked manually (though with enough samples you could infer it from the original output), and then for quick-n-dirty clones hinting is just left to your font engine's autohinting algorithms. There's a bit of angst about this in typography forums, and social pressure among typophiles and some subset of designers to avoid using "ripoff" fonts.
- mistercow 15y agoIt would be an interesting project, if nothing else simply as a statement about copyright, to write a program that automates this process and automatically rips a font file this way. By producing samples with characters placed at different fractional positions, you should even be able to infer the hinting information without directly reading it.