Font Maker Sues Universal Music Over 'Pirated' The Vamps Logo (torrentfreak.com) 142
An anonymous reader writes: Universal Music Group is being sued by HypeForType, which accuses the record label of using "pirated" copies of its fonts for the logo of The Vamps. The font is widely used for artwork, promotion material and merchandising of the popular British band, and the font creator is looking for a minimum of $1.25 million in damages. The font maker has filed a lawsuit accusing the major label of using its "Nanami Rounded" and "Ebisu Bold" fonts without permission. According to a complaint, filed in a New York federal court, Universal failed to obtain a proper license for its use, so they are essentially using pirated fonts.
Schadenfreude much? (Score:5, Insightful)
"But our piracy is different! We're a big corporation, we're allowed to do this!!!"
Re:Schadenfreude much? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, since they have this one act of piracy.. we should just assume their whole business model is piracy based. We should seize their domain and prevent them from doing business in the future.. you know, just like the RIAA/MPAA wants to do to anyone else.
Like this...? (Score:2)
https://torrentfreak.com/tvadd... [torrentfreak.com]
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It is a font, of course it can be justified. It could also be aligned left, center or right.
Re: Schadenfreude much? (Score:1)
Reasonable, by the RIAA standard. Is what, $25,000 per instance of infringement. So that's is at least once per CD, if not once per "e", once per YouTube view and a few hundred thousand per televised screening. Plus tons of jail time.
$1.25M is a huge bargain for them, unless there is some sort of double standard being employed.
Re: Schadenfreude much? (Score:5, Interesting)
The font maker needs to use the same rules [as the media cartels] when figuring out infringement costs. The media companies love to use a "per infringement" claim. So each instance of each letter of the font that was used should be treated as a separate infringement, plus throw in some wild guest-imates of how many people purchased items containing the font, and how many eyeballs may have seen it in promotions and media since it's first illegal use...
If someone shares a music album online, the RIAA/MPAA don't go for just 1 instance of piracy for the whole album, they treat EACH song as it's own instance. Therefore, using this same reasoning, a font is a collection of multiple pictographs (like an album is comprised of songs), so logically it seems safe to assume that each letter in a font is treated like a song on an album would be treated. Just because the creator packaged a group of pictographs together into a single 'font' (similar to how songs are packaged into a single album) does not change anything. It also appears that more than one font typeface was pirated, so this adds even more penalties to the mix, as it is like songs from 2 albums were pirated.
Heck, going off the logic of another recent story, I'm sure this gives the NSA reason to start spying for years to come on the entire Universal media corporation like they have been with KDC over piracy!
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The font maker needs to use the same rules [as the media cartels] when figuring out infringement costs. The media companies love to use a "per infringement" claim. So each instance of each letter of the font that was used should be treated as a separate infringement, plus throw in some wild guest-imates of how many people purchased items containing the font, and how many eyeballs may have seen it in promotions and media since it's first illegal use...
It doesn't work like that. In Apple vs. Psystar, the judge decided that MacOS X 10.5 was one work, and MacOS X 10.6 was a second work, and ordered Psystar to pay $30,000 for copying each of the two works. (Didn't make much difference since they had no money anyway). One font = one work.
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Just because the creator packaged a group of pictographs together into a single 'font' (similar to how songs are packaged into a single album) does not change anything.
While it would be nice to see the penalties calculated on a per character basis, I think it won't work if only because the analogy is flawed: the labels also sell the songs individually, as singles or on online platforms so they can claim damages for each individual song. But I suspect the font designer does not sell characters individually and does not intend to. So he cannot claim damages for each individual character. Too bad :-(
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I can understand that the font owners may just be finding out about the infringement, but if you're not monitoring your non-commercial licensees for commercial use in a manner that would bring it to your attention more timely, I'm not sure I can see how a $1.2M claim is justifiable.
The RIAA/MPAA are willing to sue regular people into bankruptcy from sharing a single album/movie because it's the "letter of the law", so they can pay the fines prescribed by law as well.
If HypeForType is asking anything less than the statutory maximum, I am disappointed. Universal et al can reap what they've sown.
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Actually, if you go to the HypeForType website and read their licensing agreement it's pretty clear that for a commercial use in promotional materials it requires an "upgrade license".
Anyone in the business of producing commercial materials and using fonts is well aware of this type of licensing requirement. I can't believe a designer working for a major corporation would be blind to these simple facts of print, publishing, and promotion. In fact it's the music industry that really invented all these niche
Re: Schadenfreude much? (Score:2)
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came here to say this. love seeing the shoe on the other foot for a change. serves them right.
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use those laws they lobbied so hard for against them.... $250,000 fine per infraction. looks like they have at least 500,000 album sales, and probably similar numbers of digital downloads and singles, so be generous and call it a million.
that will be $250,000,000,000, please.
go fuck yourself on the way out.
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Poetic justice? (Score:2)
Not really? (Score:2)
Please don't tempt them. Ever since it was shown that Google et al have survived thanks to safe harbor provisions, that's been a target. Anything to prompt them to lobby against it more than they currently are is a bad idea, imho.
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Live by the DMCA...die by the DMCA
What DMCA? Has nothing whatsoever to do with this case. Unless you know that the font was somehow protected through encryption and they illegally decrypted it.
This is (allegedly) a case of copyright infringement.
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What crazy-ass font license does not allow derivative works? I can understand if it's a web font or PDFs or something where you are distributing copies of the font itself - but t-shirts, logos, and images? That's ridiculous.
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What crazy-ass font license does not allow derivative works?
I do some work that uses images in publications, not so much with fonts, but I expect that the license options are similar. Depending on the supplier, there can be all sorts of options. Internal use only. Public, but print-only, no Internet (then: how big is your print run?). Internet use, for a limited time. Internet use forever.
The most expensive license option is usually the one that covers products destined for resale. If it's not just a market
Re:details (Score:4, Interesting)
but I expect that the license options are similar.
Fonts are not, in of themselves, copyrightable. Only computer fonts can by protected with copyright, and that's only because technically they sort-of behave like code.
So it's not really like images, but computer code. While it is very common for computer code to have separate commercial and private licenses, I would think that this would not be common for fonts. Fonts can be freely cloned, so you would expect the market to toss out the nasty licenses. I mean, if I want a completely free license to a font I can't imagine it would cost more than a few hundred dollars on a freelance site to get a decent clone. That's why I was surprised.
Re: details (Score:2)
Re: details (Score:3)
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Ha, yeah, I made sure I checked to see what country the case was filed in first :)
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Fonts, scents, colors, the rules to games, there's a whole list of stuff you can't copyright. The rules were probably laid down during the "British copyright don't apply in America" stage, early on, to screw over particular English vendors.
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Under US copyright law, the "strike" (image) of a font can not be copyrighted. Computer outline fonts can be copyrighted because the outlines are considered a computer program, even more so when there is hinting. Note that this copyright is on the specific outlines of a font. If you make a clone that looks the same, it will likely at least have fractionally different coordinates, and even the curves are likely to be subtly different.
On the other hand, font names are trademarked, so you can't just use the "
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I shouldn't need to tell you that we are talking about fonts and not movies.
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and what specific kind it was doesn't matter.
If you are a lawyer, you are pretty terrible. Of course the type matters.
conflating typefaces with the pirated computer code which was used to create them in this case,
I'm not "conflating" anything. In the US, fonts are not subject to copyright. Only the fact that they are computer fonts with some aspects of computer code lets them have any protection at all. It is completely legal to make a clone of any font you want. This is nothing like a DVD movie, and so that comment deserves ridicule.
Re:details (Score:5, Informative)
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I thought this was settled in U.S. copyright law. You can't copyright a font, only the computer instructions for making the font. Therefore, you can't restrict how text set in the font is distributed, only the usage of the font files by the designers.
You are correct, however as "software" it's licensed, and they can pretty do as they will there. There are plenty of software packages out there with separate non-commercial and commercial use licenses.
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On using the software.
The designer maybe created it as a work for hire - they can't control what Universal does afterward. What Universal did with the generated image is governed by copyright law. I really think these font makers have some impossible terms in their license.
I'm sure it was already licensed for "commercial use" but font companies decide that there's something like "bigger commercial use" that this would have fallen under. Since Universal only used the generated images, I'm not sure how the
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On using the software.
The designer maybe created it as a work for hire - they can't control what Universal does afterward. What Universal did with the generated image is governed by copyright law. I really think these font makers have some impossible terms in their license.
I'm sure it was already licensed for "commercial use" but font companies decide that there's something like "bigger commercial use" that this would have fallen under. Since Universal only used the generated images, I'm not sure how they're in any violation of the software license purchased by the designer.
It depends on the exact nature of their relationship with the designer. Without access to the contracts we have no way to know.
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This lawsuit is asking the courts to apply that case law to this situation and determine if it applies, how it applies, and necessary reparations if any.
I haven't read the full suit, but I expect it is more complex than the Slashdot summary.
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They paid for a license but used it in the wrong way.
Exactly like buying a CD or DVD and selling copies of it or playing it in public. You bought a licence when you bought the DVD, but not the one you needed to do what you did with it.
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Which is perfect, because if you buy something from Universal you need a different license to play it for an audience instead of just for yourself too. Sounds to me like Universal are in trouble for doing the exact same things that they criticize others for doing.
The major studios have been caught infringing on copyright many, many, many times before, but somehow they still think that it's ok for them, but not for anyone else.
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Somehow? How many people at those major studios have had their lives ruined by massive lawsuits or given jail time for their actions?
None? Seems to be a pretty good precedent for thinking it doesn't apply to them.
Same rules to estimate damage? (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, he is just asking for all the profits made from its use.
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Not just one count. They published a load of material with these letters illegaly, and this material has been seen by many people as a result. Fans have copied and republished these fonts. All these views count as subsequent "downloads" which are the result of the label's acts of piracy. So they are on the hook not just for a single font license but for hundreds of thousands of them, perhaps millions.
Nonsense. One font = one work = $30,000 or proven damages, whichever is higher. For statutory damages, the number of illegal copies and the value of the work doesn't count.
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I very much doubt (Score:1)
Universal designed the logo. Some graphic design firm did, and they may or may not have had a suitable licence, (my guess is not, but basically "prove it.")
While I'm all for rooting for the little guy, the idea of maintaining some "chain of custody" for every typeface used in a piece of work, which may incorporate material and logos from dozens of different brands is beyond impractical. Especially when for the most part fonts "just work" for nearly all people, nearly all of the time unless they've got the n
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I work at a design firm (not affiliated with this at all) and we have a group that just deals with licensing so this sort of thing doesn't happen.
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I do a little graphics design for indie bands and most of the time they bring me hand drawn logos or album covers. I create vector fonts for those as close to the hand drawn as I can for them because often times they will want something else later in the same font.
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Then maybe we should just drop the whole "intellectual property" facade and let everyone copy everything perfectly legally?
If you think it's too onerous to follow the rules that you spent millions of dollars lobbying for, then I don't think you'll find much sympathy.
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Will be hard to prove (Score:4, Informative)
Since font shapes cannot be copyrighted, they will have a tough time proving that their own ttf file (which can be copyrighted) was used unlawfully. If universal claimed the font was not the font maker's font, I suppose they could demand to see the ttf file, and probably a judge would go along with it. And who's to say that universal couldn't have asked a third party to make the logo who had access to the font ttf file.
Re:Will be hard to prove (Score:5, Informative)
Since font shapes cannot be copyrighted, they will have a tough time proving that their own ttf file (which can be copyrighted) was used unlawfully. .
I know that RTFA isn't popular on /. but come on. It says right there that the designer did pay for a license for the font, but it wasn't one that permitted commercial usage.
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Do you think Universal will let you take some of their "Intellectual property" that was licensed only for home use and play it commercially without complaint? They've certainly gone after enough people for exactly that in the past. Hard to feel sorry for them when they're on the other end of the exact same situation.
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So if I buy a DVD, I should be able to have a public screening of it right? I did pay for a license didn't I, just not the right one.
I personally think most copyright is just ridiculous, and this was probably just using the font in a reasonable manner, and $1.25 million is insane. But when the same people doing it, sue people for more for doing less, it hard not to get joy out of it, hope they lose, learn there lesson and the laws change. The last two are not very likely though.
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No, that's the point.
The fact that the designer purchased a license pretty much derails the argument that it was done by coincidence (though I'm not sure such an argument would hold up.. but hard to say since I imagine two people independently coming up with an identical creative work of any substance is unlikely enough that its probably never been tried.)
Then the fact that they purchased the wrong license means that the license purchase itself is not a defense. So they can't claim coincidence nor can they
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Such bullshit, wtf to people think fonts will be used for when they pay for them?
Do you honestly think somebody is going to pay $100 for a font license to change the default font on their computer's operating system? Gtfo.
Your argument is irrelevant. The only relevant thing here is the licensing agreement, the cost doesn't affect the agreement. If I convince you to pay me $1M for a desktop background picture and the license says "not for commercial use" and you use it on your companies promotional material, you better bet your ass you're going to get sued.
Maybe a better argument would be computer software. There are countless tools out there that are "free for non-commercial use" but require you to purchase a license to use
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Their fonts are software which is licensed and protected by copyright law.
Nothing to do with tiff files
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ttf, not tiff.
Maybe you need a clearer font!
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Actually it has everything to do with the ttf files and the use thereof. Like I said, the font's actual, rendered shape cannot be copyrighted. The ttf file, being a computer program, can and is copyrighted, as you say. But can this copyright extend to the final rendering? No it can't. However the font company can still claim the use of the ttf file for this logo breached their contract with the user of the font.
So this is at best a licensing/contract dispute, not a copyright issue. At least in a perfect
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Since font shapes cannot be copyrighted, they will have a tough time proving that their own ttf file (which can be copyrighted) was used unlawfully.
And proving it was used unlawfully will be all but impossible if it was ever sold to the public. Even if Universal doesn't have a license for the font files (ttf, otf, or whatever) they may have contracted a designer who does have such a license. And even if the designer was using the font without a license, it is the designer they could sue, not Universal, unless Universal had knowledge in which case they could be liable for contributory infringement.
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Since font shapes cannot be copyrighted, they will have a tough time proving that their own ttf file (which can be copyrighted) was used unlawfully.
And proving it was used unlawfully will be all but impossible if it was ever sold to the public. Even if Universal doesn't have a license for the font files (ttf, otf, or whatever) they may have contracted a designer who does have such a license. And even if the designer was using the font without a license, it is the designer they could sue, not Universal, unless Universal had knowledge in which case they could be liable for contributory infringement.
Proving it is easy since the designer bought a license for the font for the project. Universal distributed the work, and probably holds copyright on it as a work-for-hire, so yea, they sue Universal, then it's up to Universal to go after the 3rd party designer. If the contracts for this type of work are anything like they are for a screen play, the designer is up shit's creek here as they should have know they used the wrong license.
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So let's say I use a pirate copy of Photoshop to design an image for Universal. Universal then can be sued by Adobe for stealing of Photoshop? No.
A font file is a program. Any images that it creates are still owned by the user - typefaces are not copyrightable.
Designing a logo that's converted to outlines is a single violation - of a software license agreement (the font program). All future uses of that logo have nothing to do with the font company and are not damages. I don't care what the terms of th
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If you use cracked Photoshop and only gave copies of created artwork to Universal, this is what I'm talking about - not distributing the software. A font is software, but if you're distributing pictures of letterforms created by the font they are not the software. I don't know where you're pulling your made up scenarios from.
Unintended Consequences (Score:2)
So now, the music labels will find a loophole that allows them to use other people's IP without permission or payment.
Then, inevitably, someone else will use this same strategy against them,
And that whole house of cards, built on a sandbar, could come tumbling down.
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No. Only corporations with money can use the loopholes. YOU don't matter, nor do you have enough money to exploit the loopholes.
$1,250,000? Get over yourself (Score:1)
Doesn't make the monetary demand any less absurd because it is not the RIAA/MPAA filing the suit. Used without proper licensing? Yes, give reasonable damages. Not 100X more than what it would cost to hire and buy a font outright from an experienced typographer.
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If a punishment is not significantly worse than doing the right thing, it's pointless.
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Doesn't make the monetary demand any less absurd because it is not the RIAA/MPAA filing the suit.
It's a member of the MPAA being sued. As far as I see if you pay for a crazy law to be passed to make yourself richer you deserve to suffer under it.
Copyright on fonts is a tricky subject (Score:2, Informative)
While fonts themselves can be copyrighted, the typeface itself that is rendered by a font cannot be. So it is, in fact, entirely possible to create a lookalike font to a copyrighted font without infringing on the copyright on the latter as long as the lookalike font itself was not actually copied from the the copyrighted font.
In general (but not always), this means that the lookalike font was created from samples of text that use the original font, specifically text that only a utilizes a subset of the
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If I was Universal and I was feeling vindictive, I'd pay someone to clone every single one of the fonts on that site and then release them Creative Commons.
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I agree. This also means that the damages should be limited to the one infringing use of the font program (ttf) to create the logo. Derivatives of the output are not the same as derivatives from the code, so using that logo everywhere does not constitute a derivative work.
Font licensing is a huge racket. Output from a non-commercial use of the font could later be monetized and it would only violate the EULA post-hoc. Tell me how any other software program can get away with licensing like that?
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Pretty much all software programs "get away with that." If I download a program under a "free for private use" license, and then 6 months later I start a business well guess what -- I can't (legally) use that software for my business unless I turn around and purchase a commercial license.
Similar for the font case. If you use a font with a non-commercial license for a non-commercial product and then you commercialize it later.. go buy yourself a commercial license. The fact that whatever you designed with
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can't (legally) use that software for my business unless I turn around and purchase a commercial license.
Right, but this is more like you create a Word document (using Home edition Office) and never open Word again. Then sell that Word document to someone else later. Without opening Word again.
The actual artwork doesn't necessarily contain the font program (embedded ttf). If it just contains an image of the letterform or a drawing of it, you're no longer actually using the font program when you reuse the output.
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Sort of.. but sort of not. In the Word example, the person you're selling it to would have to have a licensed copy of Word. So you're more kind of shifting the licensing question rather than removing it (we'll exclude the fact that they can use OpenOffice or whatever and avoid the whole issue -- you could have done that as well.)
Obviously that kind of shifting wouldn't work for fonts (companies haven't found a way to license our own eyeballs back to us yet) but I think the parallels can still be drawn eve
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In the Word example, the person you're selling it to would have to have a licensed copy of Word
Or the free Word viewer. Or you create a PDF file from Word.
Re: Copyright on fonts is a tricky subject (Score:1)
Fuck you, fish tits!
So avoid commercial fonts then (Score:3)
This seems to me like a compelling argument for never licensing a commercial font, and just using the large and growing pool of free fonts.
Much as my personal policy for software is that if there is FOSS that can solve my problem, I try to use that even if there is something better that costs money. I don't even want to have to keep track of how many copies I have installed, how many backups I have made, etc.
That "Vamps" logo is pretty straightforward, and I'll bet it wouldn't be that hard to find some free font that would look about as nice.
Another good option: pay a free-lance artist (or even an art-college student) to design the logo, with a clear contract saying there will be no royalties.
As others have noted, the music labels are in the business of charging royalties and it's stupid for one to step on a licensing landmine like this.
Re:So avoid commercial fonts then (Score:4, Informative)
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there are countless Fonts on 'free' websites that aren't really free, but merely have the copyright info stripped from the headers and been republished countless of times on 'free font' cd collections over the past 25 years, shrouding their true origins
That's extremely interesting and a problem. Now it make more sense to me why someone would license a commercial font.
It seems that someone should make a project similar to Project Gutenberg but for fonts: provide a central clearing-house of free fonts, but h
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I don't see how that follows.. they failed to get a commercial license and are now being sued for it so your solution is to.. not use the font at all? Rather than paying the $100 license fee? I can almost guarantee you that any freelance font designer will be charging more than $100 for their time. Even a college student will likely cost you more than $100.
The only tricky part in this whole shebang is that there's a third party involved -- the designer -- and UMG wasn't paying enough attention to the lic
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Is that so hard to understand?
Apparently, since I was replying to the part about them hiring a designer, not the part about picking a freely licensed font and you seem to have skipped right over the whole "reading my comment" bit and jumped straight to ZOMGFOSS zealotry.
But if you want to talk about freely licensed fonts well then.. great.. sure they could have done that. But again, since this was through a third party the problem wasn't the license itself.. UMG didn't tell the designer what font to use. The designer could just as eas
Font vs. Typeface (Score:2)
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The method used is not pertinent to copyright. information is information how it is obtained doesnt matter.
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no. Typefaces are not copyrightable so they can not be derivative works. End of discussion.
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I think the question is when it stops being a "font" and starts being a "typeface." For example if I download a font, create a .psd with it that I don't plan on selling, and then export that .psd to a .png (still using the font) and then finally send the .png to a printer in order to create a bunch of posters that I do intend to sell. By your logic, I'm clear of copyright since the .png no longer contains the font data, only the rasterized typeface.
Obviously I'd still be considered infringing in that case
stupid (Score:2)
They have no case. Fonts are not copyrightable. Only font files.
How About? (Score:2)
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it's not shit, it's coded instructions for a sleeper cell.