[Openfontlibrary] more updates on Open Font Library

[Dave Crossland]

Hi Alexandre!

On 23/10/06, Alexandre Prokoudine <alexandre.prokoudine at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/23/06, Dave Crossland wrote:
>
> > I believe the OFLicense should therefore be the only option for the
> > OFLibrary, to help accelerate the momemtum of the OFLicense.
>
> How does OFL handle fonts whose original designer passed away more
> than 50 or 75 years ago? I've been working on digitizing some fonts of
> this kind, and Public Domain seems to be the only option for them.

This is a perception thing: you need to perceive the difference
between a font and a typeface.

A font is a digital representation of a typeface.

So when you digitise a typeface, your digitisation, your font, is 100%
yours, and the copyright over that font is with you for the normal
term of copyright (which appears to be the heat death of the universe
in our current political climate...)

So you are very much about to license your nice digitisation under the
OFL, and in fact I would highly recommend you do so :-)

Here's something curious: In the USA typefaces are not copyrightable,
because some old dead dudes said the alphabet was de facto public, and
outside the scope of copyright.

This used to be used as justification for the open resale of
unlicensed priprietary fonts, but that ended with the "Adobe vs SSI"
case (iirc). A judge said that there was "some" degree of artistry in
placing the bezier points, and since the Utopia^TM from Adobe and the
copy from SSI (?) had the same points, it was copyright infringement.

But its an open secret of the proprietary type world that you can take
a face and digitise it, and that's a new work under copyright, and the
typeface designer isn't owed squat, in the land of the free.

This fact enabled the first digital font foundry, Bitstream Inc, to
run out of the then anti-digital foundries with rolls of typeface
drawings under its arms, as the story goes.

Here in the UK though, there are 'design rights', which have a smaller
term than regular copyrights, iirc, but IANAL and don't remember the
details from my design college copyright lecture too well.

-- 
Regards,
Dave