Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Copyrights / Typefaces
No, the copyright treaties the United States has entered into specify that something copyrighted in a foreign country is not subject to copyright in the U.S. *unless* it would have been subject to copyright if it were made in the U.S. Typefaces are not subject to copyright in the U.S., no matter where they were made. FF Unless there is an actual case involving a typeface you can cite, isn't what you say just an opinion? Should it ever come to that, are you ready to shell out real money for real lawyer to prove this point? - Chris
[OpenFontLibrary] Copyrights / Typefaces
>On Tue, 2009-06-23 at 18:34 -0400, Joshua A.C. Newman wrote: >> Well, I need something both low-contrast and modern for this project. >> I might even start with DIN or Futura. Not sure yet. In any event, I'm >> pretty sure I don't have the subtlety of eye to deal with Bodoni. > >Watch out that although typefaces designed by US citizens in the US >are not protected by copyright, other countries, and in particular >Germany, do have copyright for typeface designs... > >(and the US does have copyright treaties these days, so if a design >is copyright in Germany or Fance or the UK (say), that copyright >is to be respected in the US... although it might be hard to >enforce because of past cases) No, the copyright treaties the United States has entered into specify that something copyrighted in a foreign country is not subject to copyright in the U.S. *unless* it would have been subject to copyright if it were made in the U.S. Typefaces are not subject to copyright in the U.S., no matter where they were made. FF **An Excellent Credit Score is 750. See Yours in Just 2 Easy Steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222377052x1201454391/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072&hmpgID=62&bcd=Jun eExcfooterNO62)
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Hevetice Neue on the OpenFont site
On Wed, 2009-06-24 at 00:02 +0100, Dave Crossland wrote: [...] > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface#Legal_aspects : > > "Many western countries extend copyright protection to typeface > designs. However, this has no impact on protection in the United > States, because all of the major copyright treaties and agreements to > which the U.S. is a party (such as the Berne Convention, the WIPO > Copyright Treaty, and TRIPS) operate under the principle of "national > treatment", under which a country is obligated to provide no greater > or lesser protection to works from other countries than it provides to > domestically produced works." and we learn again not to trust wikipedia on copyrights, maybe? I'd be very interested to know if this is true... would it mean that a typeface made in the US would in Germany be treated as if it had, say, life + 90 years of protection? Or that any book produced outside the US has, in the US, no protection if it was published before 1923? It's explicitly not true for photographs in the UK that were also published in EC Member countries; there, the longest possible copyright period is used... Hmm, that word "obligated" - under the treaty it doesn't have to (is the claim being made) but the US could choose to... so it's down to case law, if that's true. None the less, if you live in a country where there is the copyright for type designs that type designers have wanted in other countries :-), you still need to exercise care. And it seems to me better not to copy an existing design in any case! But if necessary, choose one that would be out of copyright both where it was made and where you live. At one time the GPL wasn't legally enforceable in the UK, but that didn't make it very nice behaviour to violate it. Liam -- Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/ Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/ Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Hevetice Neue on the OpenFont site
2009/6/23 Joshua A.C. Newman : > Well, I need something both low-contrast and modern for this project. I > might even start with DIN or Futura. Not sure yet. You can use my student project (currently in development) if you like :-) http://dave.lab6.com/a/a2009-06-23-1236.ttf > In any event, I'm pretty sure I don't have the subtlety of eye to deal with > Bodoni. All I mean is that Helvetica is derived from the skeletal forms of Bodoni, so if you want to do a Helvetica revival, I think that's the appropriate starting point :-) > I'll see what I can do, and maybe we'll make a thing! Great! :-) What programs will you use?
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Hevetice Neue on the OpenFont site
2009/6/23 Liam R E Quin : > > the US does have copyright treaties these days, so if a design > is copyright in Germany or France or the UK (say), that copyright > is to be respected in the US... although it might be hard to > enforce because of past cases) This isn't true according to a patent lawyer wikipedian, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Terrycarroll - who wrote http://www.tjc.com/copyright/typeface.html - who has written in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface#Legal_aspects : "Many western countries extend copyright protection to typeface designs. However, this has no impact on protection in the United States, because all of the major copyright treaties and agreements to which the U.S. is a party (such as the Berne Convention, the WIPO Copyright Treaty, and TRIPS) operate under the principle of "national treatment", under which a country is obligated to provide no greater or lesser protection to works from other countries than it provides to domestically produced works."
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Hevetice Neue on the OpenFont site
On Tue, 2009-06-23 at 18:34 -0400, Joshua A.C. Newman wrote: > Well, I need something both low-contrast and modern for this project. > I might even start with DIN or Futura. Not sure yet. In any event, I'm > pretty sure I don't have the subtlety of eye to deal with Bodoni. Watch out that although typefaces designed by US citizens in the US are not protected by copyright, other countries, and in particular Germany, do have copyright for typeface designs... > (and the US does have copyright treaties these days, so if a design is copyright in Germany or Fance or the UK (say), that copyright is to be respected in the US... although it might be hard to enforce because of past cases) Liam -- Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/ Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/ Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Hevetice Neue on the OpenFont site
Well, I need something both low-contrast and modern for this project. I might even start with DIN or Futura. Not sure yet. In any event, I'm pretty sure I don't have the subtlety of eye to deal with Bodoni. I'll see what I can do, and maybe we'll make a thing! -Joshua On Jun 23, 2009, at 6:11 PM, Dave Crossland wrote: 2009/6/23 Joshua A.C. Newman : Crud. It looks like it's time for a redraw. I'd rather that you looked at Bodoni and made your own, original, low contrast sans serif based on its skeletal forms, but you do whatever you think is more fun :-) There is a remarkable dearth of text body fonts in there. Surely we can harness the power of open source to generate some good body type? We surely can. Maybe we can start with some model characters (oOxXlwWbBAH) and go from there? I suggest starting with a lowercase word that has several vowels and ascender glyphs, like "adhesion" (as used in http://www.typedesign.rdg.ac.uk/) or "shoplift" (from Matthew Carter's spot in The Helvetica Movie) - and I personally started with n o d s a in that order. Such a word contains the "DNA" for the rest of the typeface. Please consider using the UFO format (since it is supported by both FontForge and FontLab) and storing your files in a Distributed Version Control System, like Mercurial. Max Rabkin made a nice little script for keeping a FontForge font in a Mercurial repository, if you are using FF. or is this one of those "new guy on the list brings up the same thing we keep trying to do like it's a new idea" things? Nope, there are a couple of collaborative typeface design experiments currently underway - eg http://klepas.org/openbaskerville/ - but its still very much a genuinely new idea, and you are most welcome to take a crack at it :-) Joshua Newman Design 401.225.7222
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Hevetice Neue on the OpenFont site
2009/6/23 Joshua A.C. Newman : > > Crud. It looks like it's time for a redraw. I'd rather that you looked at Bodoni and made your own, original, low contrast sans serif based on its skeletal forms, but you do whatever you think is more fun :-) > There is a remarkable dearth of text body fonts in there. Surely we can > harness the power of open source to generate some good body type? We surely can. > Maybe we can start with some model characters (oOxXlwWbBAH) and go from > there? I suggest starting with a lowercase word that has several vowels and ascender glyphs, like "adhesion" (as used in http://www.typedesign.rdg.ac.uk/) or "shoplift" (from Matthew Carter's spot in The Helvetica Movie) - and I personally started with n o d s a in that order. Such a word contains the "DNA" for the rest of the typeface. Please consider using the UFO format (since it is supported by both FontForge and FontLab) and storing your files in a Distributed Version Control System, like Mercurial. Max Rabkin made a nice little script for keeping a FontForge font in a Mercurial repository, if you are using FF. > or is this one of those "new guy on the list brings up the same thing we > keep trying to do like it's a new idea" things? Nope, there are a couple of collaborative typeface design experiments currently underway - eg http://klepas.org/openbaskerville/ - but its still very much a genuinely new idea, and you are most welcome to take a crack at it :-)
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Hevetice Neue on the OpenFont site
2009/6/23 Karl Berry : > > > Sadly that file is not a libre font, so I zilched it. > > It seems like it would less confusing to delete it completely than to > leave behind a useless zero-length file. Done!
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Hevetice Neue on the OpenFont site
There is a remarkable dearth of text body fonts in there. http://www.geocities.com/hartke01/ is the best attempt I know of at compiling a list of free/libre text fonts. I don't know of anything closer to Helvetica Neue in the free world closer than the various URW-Helvetica-Nimbus Sans derivations. > Sadly that file is not a libre font, so I zilched it. It seems like it would less confusing to delete it completely than to leave behind a useless zero-length file. Best, karl
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Hevetice Neue on the OpenFont site
Crud. It looks like it's time for a redraw. There is a remarkable dearth of text body fonts in there. Surely we can harness the power of open source to generate some good body type? Maybe we can start with some model characters (oOxXlwWbBAH) and go from there? ... or is this one of those "new guy on the list brings up the same thing we keep trying to do like it's a new idea" things? -Joshua On Jun 23, 2009, at 3:59 PM, Dave Crossland wrote: 2009/6/23 Joshua A.C. Newman : Helvetica Neue, easily the most useful font in the OpenFont site, is a 0k file. I'd like very much to use it for an OSS project, but, well, 0k. Any recommendations? Sadly that file is not a libre font, so I zilched it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimbus_Sans_L is the Helvetica type design available as a libre font. Download it from http://sourceforge.net/projects/gs-fonts/ Joshua Newman Design 401.225.7222
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Hevetice Neue on the OpenFont site
2009/6/23 Joshua A.C. Newman : > Helvetica Neue, easily the most useful font in the OpenFont site, is a 0k > file. I'd like very much to use it for an OSS project, but, well, 0k. Any > recommendations? Sadly that file is not a libre font, so I zilched it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimbus_Sans_L is the Helvetica type design available as a libre font. Download it from http://sourceforge.net/projects/gs-fonts/
[OpenFontLibrary] Hevetice Neue on the OpenFont site
Helvetica Neue, easily the most useful font in the OpenFont site, is a 0k file. I'd like very much to use it for an OSS project, but, well, 0k. Any recommendations? -Joshua Joshua Newman Design 401.225.7222
[OpenFontLibrary] src:local
> and its a discussion with Aaron Spaulding about his Javascript work on > the http://openfontlibrary.fontly.org/files/ listing Quick comment (I still need to listen to the recording): Isn't it src: local (Foo) instead of src: local (Foo.ttf) ? We should drop the extension in the snippets. Cheers, -- Nicolas Spalinger, NRSI volunteer Debian/Ubuntu font teams / OpenFontLibrary http://planet.open-fonts.org signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
