On 25 Jul 2005 at 7:02, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: > Mark D Lew wrote: > > > Regarding copyrights on fonts, the current guiding case is Adobe vs > > SSI (1998), which you can read online at > > <http://directory.serifmagazine.com/Ethics_and_Law/Copyright/ > > judgement.php4>. > > > > The law is pretty straightforward, neither illogical nor > > complicated. When you load a "font" on your system, what you are > > loading is not the typeface per se, but a small bit of specialized > > software that tells the computer how to draw all the characters > > within that typeface. > > and indeed, I am familiar with Adobe v. SSI; I would assert that the > U.S. Supreme Court decision is illogical and complicated for this > reason. The court held that SSI infringed software copyrights because > the files manipulated by SSI were "small bit[s] of specialized > software". . . .
I don't have time this afternoon to look at the decision but it strikes me as wrong to call a font definition file a "program." It's actually *data* to be used by some other program. And so far as I am aware, you can't copyright data. So, that would suggest to me that the case was wrongly decided because of an invalid distinction between computer program and data. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
