Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!orca.wv.tek.com!frip!andrew
From: andrew@frip.WV.TEK.COM (Andrew Klossner)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: WFNBoss Patch, and who owns the fonts
Message-ID: <10039@orca.wv.tek.com>
Date: 6 Feb 91 17:03:24 GMT
References: <1991Jan29.063615.12956@sbcs.sunysb.edu>
Sender: news@orca.wv.tek.com
Reply-To: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville, Oregon
Lines: 35

[]

	"since Corel provides about $1500 worth of fonts by Adobe
	prices and a means of converting their WFN fonts to ATM or
	other formats, does Corel own the fonts once they are
	converted?  If so, how much alteration is required to remove
	their ownership?"

I don't know the answer to the first question.  As for the second:
copyright law includes the concept of "derived work."  If you start
with a copyrighted object, the degree of change is irrelevant; the
result is a work derived from the original object, and is the property
of the original object's copyright holder.

For example, if you fire up your word processor, suck in the latest
Star Trek novel, delete all words except the initial "The", and proceed
from there to write your own novel, the result does not belong to you.

(Yes, it's irrational.  That's the law.  The biggest mistake you can
make when dealing with legal matters is to try to use reason about it!)

Something like this font question came up a few years ago with regard
to synthesizer patches.  A few dozen bytes was sufficient to completely
characterize an interesting sound (e.g., "screaming bagpipes".)  Synth
users wanted to load a patch, diddle with it to get a new, interesting
sound (which often bore no audible resemblance to the original), and
claim ownership of the result.  They couldn't.

Contrariwise, it seems that you can take a recipe out of a copyrighted
cookbook, diddle with it, and claim ownership of the result.  There
seems to be a body of case law about cooking recipes that subjects them
to nonstandard rules.

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (uunet!tektronix!frip.WV.TEK!andrew)    [UUCP]
                        (andrew%frip.wv.tek.com@relay.cs.net)   [ARPA]