Arabic-L:GEN:Font restrictions

Wed Jun 26 23:02:27 UTC 2002

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Arabic-L: Wed 26 Jun 2002
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-------------------------Directory-------------------------------------

1) Subject:Font restrictions
2) Subject:Font restrictions
3) Subject:Font restrictions

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1)
Date:  26 Jun 2002
From:Andrew Freeman <andyf at umich.edu>
Subject:Font restrictions

Actually I think that the typefaces are copyrighted.  That is why you
get "Times" vs. "Times New Roman."  There is some slight difference
noticeable to a font designer, that allows the designer not to pay a
royalty to AGFA which holds the copyright on Times.

I, of course am not a lawyer but this has been my impresion about the
state of affairs for more than 20 years now.
cheers,
andy
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2)
Date:  26 Jun 2002
From:Paul Nelson <paulnel at winse.microsoft.com>
Subject:Font restrictions

I'm not a lawyer, but this strikes me as obviously untrue.  I think
copyright laws only forbid you to sell such copies modified or not.  If

you want to make such copies and modifications for your own use you're
free to do so, so long as you've purchased the original.

Fonts are software and are copyrighted...just as a book is copyrighted.
The electronic data of a font is protected intellectual property and
cannot legally be modified without the explicit concent of the owner of
the data.

Adobe encourages people to modify their fonts directly because they
don't want to make custom fonts. Monotype, who owns Times New Roman, is
happy to make private versions of fonts for people and stay in business
by doing just that.

Paul Nelson

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3)
Date:  26 Jun 2002
From:Gregg Reynolds <greynolds at greynolds.com>
Subject:Font restrictions

I'm not a lawyer, but this strikes me as obviously untrue.  I think
copyright laws only forbid you to sell such copies modified or not.  If

you want to make such copies and modifications for your own use you're
free to do so, so long as you've purchased the original.

Fonts are software and are copyrighted...just as a book is copyrighted.
The electronic data of a font is protected intellectual property and
cannot legally be modified without the explicit concent of the owner of
the data.

"Cannot be modified"?  This is clearly untrue. The doctrine of "fair
use" permits lots of kinds of copying and modification of works under
copyright; in particular, it looks to me like a teacher could legally
copy and modify a font for educational and/or research purposes.
Artists do all kinds of copying and reproducing of copyrighted works for
artistic purposes.  I'd be very surprised if fair use for
educational/research purposes did not cover the case of an individual
copying and modifying a legally obtained font for all kinds of private
projects.  For example, in order to study the internal code design of a
professionally produced font.

But not being a lawyer myself I'm not 100% certain of the details.  Are
you a lawyer with the required specialization in copyright?  Fair use is
a pretty complex area, not nearly as clear-cut as your remarks make it
sound.  Do you represent Microsoft?  If so I'd check with legal before
pronouncing on copyright law.  I would certainly appreciate correction
by competent legal opinion if I've gotten this all wrong.

The thing I'm not sure about is the legality of using my own modified
copy of a font to produce printed works for redistribution.  My guess is
that the law isn't especially clear in this are yet.  Consider an
analogy:  I buy a compiler, modify it, and use the modified version to
produce software.  Can I redistribute the software?  As a legal issue
this is clearly off-topic for this list; but the issue of using modified
fonts to print materials does seem to have relevance, since we're not
exactly drowning in Arabic fonts.  For example, suppose I have a
favorite Arabic font and I need a glyph for the Egyptian colloquial
qaf.  It seems fair to me to modify the font I own by copying and
altering its qaf.  So long as I don't redistribute the font itself I
don't think I've harmed the copyright owner's interests by printing a
book using the modified font.  Can anybody out there offer a competent
legal opinion on this?

Also, companies (e.g. Microsoft) generally don't sell software, they
license it, and I have no idea where that leaves the consumer wrt
copyright law.  Maybe it doesn't even apply.

Here's the url for the US Copyright Office's circular on the basics:
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html

Fair use:  http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107  also
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.notes.html

Fontlab sells professional font design software, and on their website
they make a font or two available without copyright restrictions,
specifically for use as a starting point in designing new fonts.  I've
not looked at them myself so I don't know if they're any good.
http://www.fontlab.com

Anyway that's my two cents; I'm not looking for a debate on the issue,
which I'm sure can be found on other law-oriented lists.  Since the
censor of this list has helpfully de-threaded the messages, I'm unable
to refer to the originating message, but I hope this serves to de-FUD
things a little.

-gregg

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End of Arabic-L:  26 Jun 2002
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