Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!decwrl!shelby!lindy!news From: BL.JPL@forsythe.stanford.edu (Jonathan Lavigne) Newsgroups: comp.fonts Subject: Re: Are fonts illegal to copy?? Message-ID: <10268@lindy.Stanford.EDU> Date: 30 Jun 90 06:20:13 GMT Sender: news@lindy.Stanford.EDU (News Service) Distribution: usa Lines: 20 In article , hemstree@handel.CS.Colostate.Edu (charles he hemstreet) writes: > >Is it possible to scan fonts from a book (book of fonts) and then use >some program to make them into real postscript fonts for a MacIntosh? >Is this illegal? The April 1990 issue of Publish magazine had an article on how copyright law applies to images and typefaces. On p. 82, the author says that the design of a typeface is not itself covered by copyright law. "As a result, different type founders [sic] can sell their version of the same type families under different names. Adobe's Palatino, for example, is almost exactly the same as ITC's Zapf Calligraphic. Likewise, you're free to use font-editing programs in order to modify an existing typeface design; that wouldn't be considered infringement." What is copyrightable is program code that creates a typeface. Jonathan Lavigne BL.JPL@RLG.STANFORD.EDU Research Libraries Group Stanford University