colonel@buffalo.CSNET.UUCP (07/16/86)
There are peculiar obstacles to protecting typefaces. Dr. Bigelow writes: > Like other artistic forms, type is created by skilled artisans. They may > be called type designers, lettering artists, punch-cutters, calligraphers, > or related terms, depending on the milieu in which the designer works and > the technology used for making the designs or for producing the type. The trouble with this analysis is that font design is no longer restricted to "skilled artisans." In fact, anybody with a Macintosh can design fonts. More generally, any capable programmer can hack out a program for designing fonts interactively. I've done it many times. > It usually takes about seven years of study and practice to become a > competent type designer. This seems to be true whether one has a Phd. in > computer science, a high-school diploma, or no academic degree. The skill > is acquired through study of the visual forms and practice in making them. > As with geometry, there is no royal road. Dr. Bigelow writes in the context of printing, where what he says is correct. In the context of CRTs, "seven weeks" would be a better estimate. To take an extreme example, I once designed a half-ASCII font on a 3x5 dot matrix. (It can be seen on the cover of _Scientific American_ for July '78.) Am I entitled to protection for the font? for the characters individually? I doubt it: in how many ways can one design an "A" on a 3x5 matrix? Very few! For me to claim copyright on it would be like publishing a book containing the single word "The" and suing anybody who incorporated my work in their own works. Well, then, what about a 5x7 dot matrix? Here the possibilities are more numerous, but there are still relatively few ways to design the characters in a 5x7 CRT font. If different CRT manufacturers can arrive at substantially equal designs by straightforward consider- ations, does the older manufacturer deserve damages from the younger? Moreover, whatever criterion, formal or intuitive, the courts apply to test whether two fonts are equal, I can easily change just enough dots to miss the criterion. Designing a 5x7 font is just too easy for all of us! There are other obstacles to protecting typefaces in the computer age. I get a digitized copy of a patented font, protected by the law. I use a computer to alter the slant. Result: a new font! Oh, the law will regard it as "derivative" and hence protected; but ... * How long will the law take to realize that the font is derivative? * How long will the law take to realize that I'm using it? * What action will the law take against the thousands of amateurs to whom I have quietly distributed the font? * How will the law find out that I was responsible for the original transformation? The amateurs can obstruct all these processes, and most of them will. For example: I don't just slant the font, I embolden it till it's unrecognizable. I square off the serifs; I elongate the descenders; I convert the font to an outline or inline font. All this by computer, as easy as using a Xerox. Or I take two similar fonts by different designers, and take the average, character by character. I make a couple of emendations, and alter one character distinctively. Who will recognize the original fonts when they see my "new" one? Yet the new font may be as good as the old ones; it may even be better. Indeed, one of us amateurs is bound to come up with a derivative that's better than the original. For all this, I agree with Dr. Bigelow that good artists deserve "pro- tection" (that is, just recompense) for their works. I just don't consider copyright a practicable method of protection. Once you release any work in a form that can be processed by computer, it belongs to the world. You'll never get it back!
reid@DECWRL.DEC.COM.UUCP (07/20/86)
Sicherman writes, presumably seriously: >Or I take two similar fonts by different designers, and take the average, >character by character. I make a couple of emendations, and alter one >character distinctively. Who will recognize the original fonts when they >see my "new" one? Yet the new font may be as good as the old ones; it >may even be better. Indeed, one of us amateurs is bound to come up with >a derivative that's better than the original. It would be nice if Ed Meese would concentrate on stamping out true pornography, such as type fonts created this way, instead of concentrating on nude women.
thomas%utah-gr@UTAH-CS.ARPA.UUCP (07/20/86)
Sure, any joker can design a font. Any joker always could. But to
design a good-looking, nicely balanced, easy-to-read font ... Ah!
There's the rub.
--
=Spencer ({ihnp4,decvax}!utah-cs!thomas, thomas@utah-cs.ARPA)BJackson.pa@XEROX.COM (07/21/86)
Col.,
A little humor:
"The amateurs can obstruct all these processes, and most of them
will.
For example: I don't just slant the font, I embolden it till it's
unrecognizable. I square off the serifs; I elongate the descenders; I
convert the font to an outline or inline font. All this by computer,
as easy as using a Xerox."
You don't know how correct you really are. Xerox has a product
entitled "TypeFounder" which is capable of these operations; and all
this by computer, as easy as using a Xerox (workstation).
bj