23 Jul
2005
23 Jul
'05
4:28 p.m.
>>>> "Fred" == Fred Cisin
<cisin at xenosoft.com> writes:
Fred> On Fri, 22 Jul 2005, Andrew K. Bressen wrote:
> some of the original postscript fonts were
licensed from them by
> adobe; they seem to own helvetica, optima, and palatino among
> others. They merged with Hell, a printing press maker, around
> 1990. Today they exist as a font vendor, owned by Heidelberg
> (probably the world's foremost printing press maker).
Fred> They actually do not own the FONTS (or typefaces) but they own
Fred> (trademark) the NAMES "Helvetica", "Times Roman", etc.
Anybody
Fred> can make a similar, or even copy, of the font, but they have to
Fred> pay to use the name. (Think "Arial")
True in the USA, not true elsewhere. The USA refuses to acknowledge
the fact that artistry is involved in font design, and therefore
refuses to allow copyright in fonts. As a result, font piracy is
legal here -- you can buy "1000 fonts cheap" CDs. Those are generally
made by copying the character outlines. Not the actual outline
definitions typically -- but rather a re-tracing of the letter shape
as drawn. The result is that those cheap ripoffs are actually quite
visibly lower quality -- extraneous control points, sloppy outlines,
and of course no "kerning" or "hinting".
What China is in software and movies, the USA is in fonts...
paul