odonnell@adobe.COM (Terry O'Donnell) (04/13/91)
Quang Le asked: > I want to modify some common fonts (Times, Courier,...) by > adding some special characters which are only used in Vietnamese > writing. If I distribute these fonts to other people (with or > without fee), do I have to pay royalties to Adobe? Assume that my > customers are already licensed to use those fonts (English character > set) in their computers. Although it is understandable that it may be necessary to alter a font for one's own use, the distribution of the resulting font is not allowed (except conceivably by a special licensing agreement). In many cases, Adobe is bound by agreements with the companies who license their fonts to us. Our official position (offered here for informational purposes rather than as a warning!) is as follows: Adobe has stated publicly that, although it has a legal right to do so, it will not pursue end users who modify or adapt Adobe font programs for their own personal or business use. But Adobe reserves the right to pursue those who redistribute or resell the modified Adobe fonts. Terry O'Donnell Adobe Systems
dhosek@euler.claremont.edu (Don Hosek) (04/15/91)
In article <14014@adobe.UUCP>, odonnell@adobe.COM (Terry O'Donnell) writes: > Quang Le asked: >> I want to modify some common fonts (Times, Courier,...) by >> adding some special characters which are only used in Vietnamese >> writing. If I distribute these fonts to other people (with or >> without fee), do I have to pay royalties to Adobe? Assume that my >> customers are already licensed to use those fonts (English character >> set) in their computers. > Although it is understandable that it may be necessary to alter > a font for one's own use, the distribution of the resulting > font is not allowed (except conceivably by a special licensing > agreement). True, but in this case, the distributed code could work on the assumption that the printer already knows about Times, etc. and only contain the newly created characters which probably would just be code for accented characters. If memory serves, it should be possible to create a character set for Vietnamese without even creating any new glyphs or needing to copy any of the existing character definitions. This certainly wouldn't call for any special licensing agreement since the use of existing fonts would be no more sophisticated than what appears in a typical document. -dh Don Hosek dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu Quixote Digital Typography 714-625-0147
FLEGLEI@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (04/20/91)
Sorry, I can't quote previous dox using my editor, but the posting consisted of one person asking, can I modify Times to add Vietnamese diacriticals & other characters & distribute it. Another folk said, no, you can't. A third said you could distribute the new characters. And my posting: using, on the Mac at least, Altsys' Fontographer 3.2 program (and earlier versions) one can use the "composite" function to create placeholders for all of the characters in a given font; say, Times Roman from Adobe. One can then use Fontographer to create new characters. Note that these characters must be *entirely* *new*. It is copyright violation to use portions of existing characters. The font thus created after generation requires the presence of the original copyrighted font but contains none of its code & is therefore legal to sell or give away. Please NOTE: this is not the same as using Fontographer to OPEN an existing typeface & modify & save it. The composite function uses rough placeholders that do not reproduce codes. These placeholders may be moved up or down or have details added on top of them (such as diacritics). Do the Adobe folks agree with this? I have purchased fonts created in this manner sold by people who also sell Adobe fonts legally. Glenn Fleishman, Yale University Printing Service glenn_fleishman@yccatsmtp.ycc.yale.edu