2009/6/2 Werner LEMBERG <[email protected]>: > >>> [...] in Germany those fonts are called `Brotschriften' (which >>> somehow translates to `fonts for daily use'). >> >> Okay, good to have that confirmed by a German (I assume you are?) > > I'll send you my second for this insult. I'm Austrian :-)
Haha sorry - I'll surely buy you a beer when we eventually meet :-) >> I assert that the general case is that all designs published in this >> catalogue are protected as artistic works (ie basically forever) and >> there are some exceptions such as the USA, France, Germany and >> Switzerland, where they are not. > > Hmm. I can't believe that for a very simple reason: If you use an > artistic work, you have to pay copyright fees. But noone is paying > fees for using a font in a book! The UK law has made making copies in the process of printing, _when the copies are licensed_, a specific exemption from normal copyright restrictions - see http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/ukpga_19880048_en_3 - so if a font vendor tried to do this, people would be within their rights to disobey this part of the agreement, I think. And this kind of exception would be why permission to use a font on unlimited size print runs is just a de facto common place thing now, and I think if a vendor did try it, the market would reject it as too restrictive even if it was enforceable. I've never seen such a license, but I don't license proprietary fonts though, so I've asked if anyone on Typophile knows of any vendors trying this at http://typophile.com/node/58653 :-) > In other words, font shapes in > general are not covered at all by normal copyright. You need > something special -- the Vienna agreement or similar laws -- to get > some protection. I think it is important not to spread that idea, because if someone scans and redigitised that 1982 catalogue and the fonts wind up in GNU/Linux distributions and Monotype sues them, that would not be good. I think "font shapes in general are covered by normal artistic copyright, some countries have exceptions to this" is more accurate. Cheers, Dave _______________________________________________ Freetype mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/freetype
