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From: patwood@unirot.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.text,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Font Copyrights
Message-ID: <483@unirot.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-Apr-87 18:56:56 EST
Article-I.D.: unirot.483
Posted: Fri Apr  3 18:56:56 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Apr-87 08:01:44 EST
References: <792@bobkat.UUCP> <445@unirot.UUCP> <446@unirot.UUCP> <447@unirot.UUCP> <291@pluto.UUCP>
Reply-To: patwood@unirot.UUCP (Patrick Wood)
Organization: Pipeline Associates, Inc.
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Xref: utgpu comp.text:620 misc.legal:1023

> Does anyone provide legal access to fonts for laser printers and such,
> e.g. is there somewhere that I could go to buy a Times Roman (TM) font
> from the owners of the name?

You can either buy the font from the owner (in the case of Times Roman,
that would be Allied Linotype); this is typically done by licensing the
font for use on your device.  You can also go to someone that is licensed
to provide the font under an agreement with the trademark holder (e.g.,
Adobe "licenses" Times Roman to you when you buy a PostScript device).

> Another point.  I picked up the first printed item I found, it says
> "(C) 1986 Citbank NA".  Full of words, but have they also (C)'d the
> type?  If not, and the type is owned by someone else, why doesn't it
> say so?  So can I lift fonts from there?

Type can't be copyrighted!  Read the article by Charles Bigelow that I
posted here a while ago.  You can copyright the digital representation
of a typeface (e.g., the bitmap or the PostScript code that produces it),
as these are considered programs and data; however, once the type hits
the page, it can't be copyrighted and therefore doesn't fall under the
domain of the "(C) 1986 ..."  In other words, you can lift fonts from
any printed page, you simply can't call them by their trademarks.

Pat Wood
Editor, The PostScript Language Journal