Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!jarthur!euler.claremont.edu!dhosek
From: dhosek@euler.claremont.edu (Don Hosek)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Re: Font Royalties
Message-ID: <1991Apr14.225304.1@euler.claremont.edu>
Date: 15 Apr 91 05:53:04 GMT
References: <14014@adobe.UUCP>
Sender: news@jarthur.Claremont.EDU
Organization: Harvey Mudd College
Lines: 31

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