http://www.totse.com/en/law/justice_for_all/sf-legal.html
http://www.out-law.com/page-6170
The above article explans why fonts can not be copyrighted. I know blender com with one font 
I would like to design a logo using blender, gimp and inscape. the logo is a phrase. if i use a font that comes with microsoft can I trade mark it or do i need to get permision.
also why does blender come with one font.
why does blender come with itâs own font? because thereâs no guarntee youâll already have itâŚ
I donât think a font is sufficent to make something youâd want to trademark. Itâs probably a good starting point
[however I canât answer about the legal issues]
well the paper doesnt explain it in away you need to know it.
first you have to OWN the font you want to use in your logo, letterhead, or what ever. when you BUY the font you bought the RIGHTS to use it where ever you want to. this means you also can create a logo with the font you BOUGHT!
if you use a font you do not own you do not violate copyright but you comit theft which is a crime as well.
all fonts which come with windows or any other os are as far as i know free to use for everything. with paying for windows you also paid for using the fonts which come with it.
however i would not use any fonts which come with windows.
i hope this explains you questions.
I have never, ever heard of anyone being charged with font stealing in a logo. AFAIK the fonts with Windows, and most fonts from the internet are in the public domain, and can be used, unless there is some expressed license attached that prevents this.
A logo is one unit, a graphical âentityâ if you will, that consists of both the type and the logo symbol itself, you canât seperate the letters in it and say they come from a copyrighted font and so the logo violates copyright.
Most fonts are similar in many points, you can stretch them a bit, make them thinner-thicker, maybe change them abit, and unless its some very special font, noone will be able to prove that you used their font.
On the other hand, when designing logos, unless they have a lot of text, I usually draw the letters by hand (curves, in CorelDraw).
Interesting discussion about font licensing here: http://www.faces.co.uk/corporate_services/font_licences.cfm
first you have to OWN the font you want to use in your logo, letterhead, or what ever.
More likely you need to have a license for its usage.
when you BUY the font you bought the RIGHTS to use it where ever you want to. this means you also can create a logo with the font you BOUGHT!
Again I think you mean license.
if you use a font you do not own you do not violate copyright but you comit theft which is a crime as well.
Umm no, it would never be theft, theft is deprivation of someone elses property. The only thing that one could be doing is infringing on the creator/owner of the fonts rights. If fonts are indeed uncopyrightable, then it would be a patent, or trademark right. There are probably aspects of font technology which are patentable as regards to kerning or other algorithmic aspects.
Just did a search
First, the short answer in the USA: Typefaces are not copyrightable; bitmapped fonts are not copyrightable, but scalable fonts are copyrightable.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/fonts-faq/part2/
So if it is a vector font (and thus âa programâ) it is copyrightable in the US.
LetterRip
nope when you use a tyoe face you did not purchase and thus have the license to use it you are commiting a crime because you use a stolen font.
what do you think is going on with the printing industry.
i have quite some experiene with that.
cekhunen,
nope when you use a tyoe face you did not purchase and thus have the license to use it you are commiting a crime because you use a stolen font.
As noted abouve, you canât steal âintellectual propertyâ the only thing you can do is infringe.
However, apparently US congress specifically excluded typefaces from infringement with the noted exceptions above, unless you can find a source that shows otherwise. Just asserting âyour experienceâ doesnât mean you are correct.
Note that typeright.org which is a lobbyist group that thinks they should be copyrightable also states they are not,
http://www.typeright.org/feature4.html
The only copyright infringement suits one such as the Adobe vs The Learning Company Inc. was regards font software and not the fonts. (Adobe also has some font related patents, but I donât know if they are tested).
Judge Whyte wrote in the decision: âThe fact that a computer program produces unprotectable typefaces does not make the computer program itself unprotectable.â Font designers âmake creative choices as to what points to select based on the image in front of them on the computer screen.â
http://www.allcompu.com/typejudg/judge.htm
So unless you find some case law that backs up your claim - then Iâll trust a judges ruling and the statement from an entity that is lobbying to have fonts be copyrightable over your claim.
LetterRip
when you send your print documents to the printer you have to have the license to use the type faces you selected in your print material.
however it is tru that there is a problem with typeface clones. Microsofts new Segoe typeface looks very much like the next frutiger.
because of this similarity cannot register its typeface as a in german we call it âGeschmacksmusterâ which is some sort of copyright/trademark.
âSo unless you find some case law that backs up your claim - then Iâll trust a judges ruling and the statement from an entity that is lobbying to have fonts be copyrightable over your claim.â
âwhich has resulted in the United States being the only country in the western world not to recognize the intellectual property in typeface designs.â
A photo, a typeface, a logo, even a stroke can be registered and so protected from illigale use LetterRip. The link you posted gave yourself the answer to your own claim. I protected quite some amount of graphic design and industrial design products i created.
There is a difference between copyrighting a typeface and copyrighting a font file. As far as I know, you canât copyright the typeface - that is the way the characters look, but you can copyright a digital representation of that typeface in a font file (such as a TTF file).
So itâs perfectly legal for me to go back to the original drawings or cuts of Helvetica from the 50s and photograph, trace and make my own digital font file, and I can do this without infringing the copyright of Linotype. But I have to do it all myself, I canât just copy the existing TTF file.
This is why there are so many similar fonts around with different names. While you canât copyright the typeface itself, you can trademark the name. So I can make my version of Helvetica, I just canât call it Helvetica. So there is Bitstreamâs version of it called Swiss 721. Monotype did this a lot with Microsoft, to make cheap knockoffs of popular fonts to include with Windows: http://www.ms-studio.com/articlesarialsia.html
But to answer the original question, yes you can use fonts however you like. Many trademarked logos are nothing but a name in a typeface. What youâre trademarking is that unique mark - the specific arrangement of letters in whatever way, you can think of it as just like an artistic bunch of lines.
true nobody can prevent that somebody will create a clone,
but even those things can get attention. again Microsoft
has a problem. This was the same story with the ARIAL
typeface which is based on the HELVETICA.
when you design a typeface you create an artwork.
that one you can protect. i guess i am missusing some keywords here
on my own and ceating some missunderstandings.
the software cannot be copyrigthed as a font designer but the
design of the font, this means you outlines for the font.
when you protected it and somebody creates a clone of it which
is very close you can sue for stealing interlectual property.
Actually Arial is based on Akzidenz Grotesque.
the software cannot be copyrigthed as a font designer but the
design of the font, this means you outlines for the font.
The design of the font is quite different to the outlines of the font. One is more like an âideaâ, the other is an implementation. You can have two fonts that look nearly identical to the normal eye but the outlines themselves, the metrics, kerning info, etc stored in the font file can be wildly different. Often when talking about old typefaces which people have scanned and traced, you can compare the quality of different versions of the font files between people who have used auto tracing software, or done a sloppy job in the trace, to people who have taken great care and detail in making the outlines most efficient and concise.
when you protected it and somebody creates a clone of it which
is very close you can sue for stealing interlectual property.
The outlines stored in the font file, yes. But the design of the typeface, no. Thatâs why Monotype (and many other companies) havenât been sued for their variants and clones. Though if someone makes a digital copy of the font file itself, sure, then itâs copyright infringement.
just explains it. linotype also tried to sue microsoft because the monotype Arial is very similar and looks based on the helvetica typeface.
i know how to design a type, i have 4 years of type design and calligraphy experience and worked for now 6 years in graphic design.
people who dl free fonts are anyway nuts. one reason why monotype or other companies dont realy care about those cheap imitation is because no professional would use them. designing the shape of the letters is only one part of creating a font file for a PC. that is the part many hobbies can do. but when it comes to create the metric tables things get very time consuming and even most graphic designers do not have develloped the eye for that job.
on the second hand the problem is also that protecting your work is easy but claiming that somebody used your work for his own idea is difficult.
in this area the law doesnt protect your, i love the german term, âgeschmacksmusterâ (Taste sample) not enough.
This is just getting sily, but although MS used Arial to avoid Helvetica licensing fees, your very link states âThough nearly identical to Helvetica in both proportion and weight, the design of Arial is in fact a variation of Monotypeâs Grotesque seriesâ. Anyway I find these sorts of things fun and interesting - Iâd be curious if you have a link about Linotype trying to sue since I havenât heard that before.
people who dl free fonts are anyway nuts. one reason why monotype or other companies dont realy care about those cheap imitation is because no professional would use them.
Itâs the type companies that are making the cheap imitations (or expensive imitations). Monotype is the company that created Arial, the Grotesk knockoff. (fyi, this seems to be a pretty exhaustive list: http://desktoppub.about.com/od/lookalikefonts/ ). Most of the fonts that we use today werenât designed on a computer, they were sketched on paper or cut into lead. Anyone is free to create a font file based on those sketches without infringing each othersâ copyright, since itâs the digital file that falls under copyright.
designing the shape of the letters is only one part of creating a font file for a PC. that is the part many hobbies can do. but when it comes to create the metric tables things get very time consuming and even most graphic designers do not have develloped the eye for that job.
Iâm quite aware of, and familiar with whatâs needed to design a font. What Iâm trying to clarify is the legality, for the benefit of the posters in this thread. And whether itâs a good thing or a bad thing, that is that the digital file is copyrightable, the design is usually not. Iâm not going into any more details since Iâm not a lawyer and donât know what the specifics are in all jurisdictions.
cheers
using a commercial type without the lisence is the same problem as using a cracked version of photoshop.
the designer buys the license to use it and can than do with it what he wants. he does not have to get any permission to use the font in his artwork which he wans to trade mark.
here is one of the links:
microsoft tried to register the type Segoe as a software and not as an artform (Kunstform-Geschmacksmuster). they also make here a reference to the old Arial story.
i wouldnt say helvetica and arial are based on Akzidenz Grotesk.
while that type was used as a source of inspiration helvetica is not just a plain copy of it with small modifications. Berthold AG basicly created with that type a good starting point for many new designs.
however the question here is how far is a type a source of inspiration in contrast to a duplication of it. last one not only includes the shape of the letters but also the metrics. there is why arial is considered being a clone of helvetica and not a clone of Akzidenz Grotesk.
ah well this are anyway differences most people wouldnt even notice.
thanks to Gottfried Pott who tought me calligraphy and type design and with his type history classes quite often book puplications arent quite right. you would be surprised about how much is wrong in those books.
any that are facts only historians might love to hear about.
there are few cheap type houses but Linotype and URW dont realy belong to them, the ones i refer to a lot. the money for a good commercial font pays back anyway.