[Openfontlibrary] design service

[Liam R E Quin]

On Wed, 2008-11-05 at 20:41 -0200, minombresbond wrote:

> I take this opportunity to ask if you know about scaned images of
> public domain or olds typography catalog resources on the web, I know
> about raph levien's catalogs like:
> 
> http://levien.com/type/atf_1912/ 
> http://levien.com/type/atf_1923/
> http://levien.com/type/atf_1934/
> http://levien.com/type/atf_1941/
> 
> There is something else?

Is there anything specific you are looking for?  At what
sort of resolution?  I've considered adding a lot of typeface
scans to www.fromoldbooks.org but not sure who would benefit.


> I understand that the glyps of any typeface is not
> 'copyrightable' material in USA and the rest of the world
> 
> http://www.loc.gov/cgi-bin/formprocessor/copyright/cfr.pl?&urlmiddle=1.0.2.6.2.0.174.1∂=202&section=1&prev=&next=2
> 
> (except any 'patented' typefaces in any european countrys),

That's not right -- they are not copyrightable in the US, but
they _are_ copyrightable in (many) other countries.  However,
typeface design protection is limited, e.g. in the UK I think
it's 25 years.

>  then, I can
> take any 'privative' actual font, printing the font, re-drawing the
> glips, reasign the kerning pairs etc and publish that font (the
> font software) in any free licence.. but this procedure will not be seen
> very well, by my colleagues tipographers...

Furthermore, the typeface _names_ are often registered trademarks...

Also, developing a high-quality typeface can be a lot of work;
Microsoft spent over a million US dollars on Arial, I've heard.

I'd rather see some creativity at work than blind copying :-)
although I'm very willing to scan some typeface samples whose
copyright has expired, e.g. to help people make revivals.

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