Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:11728 comp.sys.mac:10086 misc.legal:3077 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!marque!gryphon!richard From: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.mac,misc.legal Subject: Re: Macintosh Fonts Message-ID: <2607@gryphon.CTS.COM> Date: 16 Dec 87 08:08:27 GMT References: <546@oscvax.UUCP> <1308@uhccux.UUCP> Reply-To: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA Lines: 44 Summary: Nothing to do with Pixar In article <1308@uhccux.UUCP> cm450s02@uhccux.UUCP (Jeff T. Segawa) writes: >In article <546@oscvax.UUCP> rico@oscvax.UUCP (Rico Mariani) writes: >>I've recently converted a whole bunch of Macintosh fonts to the Amiga >>format and I'd like to put them on a public domain font disk. However, >>I can see where there might be a few legal problems with doing this... >>So my question is this, which Mac fonts (if any) could I release without >>being sued to bits? >> >I think most of the fonts released by Apple are either copyrighted by >Apple itself, or licensed to them by ITC, Adobe or others. This is >especially true of some laser fonts, like ITC Garamond and Zapf. >I'm no attorney, but I suspect that releasing those into the public >domain could get you into trouble. I believe Apple licensed them, but in itself doesn't own any font copyrights. Doesn't make much difference, because... (are you sitting down) ... you cannot copyright a font design in the U.S. (not sure about Canada) You can trademark a name (like Helvetica (tm)), and you can copyright the binary that is the font, but the design itself cannot be copyrighted. Sooo, you can scale up a font you like, blatently copy it, and do with it as you please. Sell it, etc. No shit. Now, how does one prove that a software publisher *converted* a font, or copied the design ? Clear as mud, eh, hoser ? (Ref. Chuck Bigelow's article on Font Copyrights published recently in comp.lang.postscript) -- "Well they say, that Santa Fe, is more, than 90 miles away" {ihnp4!crash, hplabs!hp-sdd!crash}!gryphon!richard || richard@gryphon.CTS.COM