rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) (05/04/91)
karl@apple-gunkies.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Karl Berry) writes: [various points about copyright on font programs, not on fonts, etc] > Of course, type designers are trying to change this, and get copyright > protection for typefaces... ... > It's clear that there is something to protect:... ... > But is copyright protection the right way to go?... > ...I think society would > benefit if ... copying and sharing was not made illegal, but rather was > encouraged... The situation as it stands today does allow copying, and I think there's good evidence that it hasn't worked well: Font designers aren't getting the rewards they ought to. The way to make money with fonts is to let someone else do the hard work, then knock off a copy--the profit comes by reducing development cost to near zero and by anti-innovative behavior. I'm not quite saying that copyright protection IS the way to go--it's quite likely it would enrich lawyers more than font designers, and that's not an improvement! I AM saying that the current situation looks pretty bad. > ...One way in which type designers could still make > money is by getting contracts -- let's say you and I want a new super > typeface; so we get our friends together and hire, say, Chuck Bigelow to > do the job for $x. He gets paid for his time; we get the typeface we > wanted; and the typeface can now be freely used, to everyone's > advantage. There's nothing preventing that approach today. Does it happen? Not that I've noticed. Why not? It may be that designing an entirely new font is a sufficiently costly proposition that the person or firm underwriting the design is not going to be inclined to give it away for free. (What does it cost, anyway? I'd hazard a guess that it's at least $100k to do a typical family of four of professional quality.) -- Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd Boulder, CO (303)449-2870 ...If you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind.