On Mon, Feb 07, 2000 at 04:14:52PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Well, I can't argue with that. But I'm happy for not being the > judge who - in these days of digital typesetting - must decide > when something is an alternative representation of a font and > when it is just a document which happens to contain every letter > in the alphabet and enough text to exhibit a selection of common > kerning pairs...
There is jurisprudential precedent on this issue, at least in the United States.[*] It has been ruled that typefaces are not copyrightable, but fonts are. Note the difference. The typeface is what your eyes see. A font is a set of instructions, similar to a computer program, for generating a typeface given a set of input parameters. Things like hinted fonts are very complex indeed, as most of us know; the same font can produce quite distinct typefaces at 6 points and 36, for instance. Simple bitmapped fonts are not effectively copyrightable, IIRC. (All someone has to do is arrange for every glyph to be displayed, and then "reverse-engineer" it.) Video card manufacturers, for instance, cannot meaningfully assert copyright on VGA BIOS fonts because these are just bitmapped typefaces, not proper fonts. There is a world of difference between bitmapped fonts and hinted fonts like Type 1. Adobe has built an empire on this distinction. [*] This is to the best of my knowledge, which is a few years old, but which I regarded as being from a reputable source. Sorry, I don't have a cite. -- G. Branden Robinson | Debian GNU/Linux | Never attribute to malice that which can [EMAIL PROTECTED] | be adequately explained by stupidity. roger.ecn.purdue.edu/~branden/ |
pgpvecAldILnr.pgp
Description: PGP signature
