Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sun-barr!newstop!sun!lorelei!lemay
From: lemay@lorelei.Sun.COM (Laura Lemay)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: Need font info
Message-ID: <124647@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 13 Sep 89 20:30:23 GMT
References: <119@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <1449@intercon.com>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: lemay@sun.UUCP (Laura Lemay)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 29

>> Are they all copyrighted by Adobe?
>
>The PostScript programs that draw the fonts are.  The character outlines
>themselves are usually either licensed from a type company such as ITC or
>Mergenthaler, or proprietary to Adobe (the Stone typefaces, for instance).

Well, close, but no cigar.  The outlines themselves are not licesned, the
NAME is.  The outline fonts themselves are drawn by Adobe as well. 
(I believe....I could be totally wrong, but this is what a graphic design
expert told me once.)

Due to a glitch in copywright laws, and the fact that most existing type-
faces have been around for hundreds of years, typefaces cannot be copywrighted.
Only the names can.  Adobe could have re-drawn Times or Helvetica, but they 
would have had to call them something else in order to publish them. (lots of little bitmap companies do just this). By licensing the names, the can draw thier own versions of the existing fonts, and have them get the recognition of that
name in the design and publishing worlds.


ITC has its own line of fonts using thier drawings of the typeface, which
sometimes can differ a great deal from Adobe's drawings.  ITC Garamond tends
to be a lot closer to the original Garamond (a little rounder, with larger
spaces in the closed of sections of the "B" and "e", and thier Times Bold is a MUCH better rendering than Adobe's is.  ITC markets its fonts with the ITC
label in front because Adobe got the real names marketed first :-)

Just a random note from an amatuer graphic designer...


-Laura Lemay			lemay%lorelei@sun.com
Redhead.  Drummer.  Geek.