Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!boulder!sunybcs!bingvaxu!leah!uwmcsd1!marque!gryphon!richard
From: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: copyright infringement for fonts
Message-ID: <2644@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: 19 Dec 87 18:49:39 GMT
References: <2515@fluke.COM>
Reply-To: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 49

In article <2515@fluke.COM> kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth) writes:
>Warning:  I am not a lawyer, and if I was I would deny it.
>
>Someone asked "How do you prove that someone copied the design of a font,
>and not the binary?"
>
>Well, with software, you do the following:  Convert the original software
>and the new software to a common file format.  This is necessary if (for
>example) the amiga and macintosh (both tm.) used different file formats.
>At any rate, you would end up with bit maps of the fonts in the same order
>(row or column).  Then you use a sophisticated comparison program to measure
>their similarity.  These are similar to the programs used to compare strands
>of DNA, and give a percentage measure.  Then you take the result to court,
>arguing that the binaries would not be so similar unless they had simply
>been reformatted.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.  It depends on
>the judge/jury, phase of the moon, and other arcane legal factors.


Nope.

You blow up a mac font (somehow) so that each bit is readily recognizable.

You enter it into the amiga with a font-editor (or reasonable facsimile
thereof, like FED).

Now. Take the resultant file. A legal copy.

I have a font: 'Chicago' (detinitly not (tm)). I defy anybody to
prove I converted it from the "rather similar" looking mac font
Chicago, rather than used the above scheme.

I suppose there are lots of things I could do to prove I edited the
font, rather than copied/converted it, such as videotape myself editing
it, or take screen shots of the half edited fonts.

But.

The onus is not on me to prove I entered/edited the font, the onus
would be on the other party to prove I copied their binary.

In the immortal words of Hunter S. Thompson: "chew on that gibberish
for a while, you heartless scum" :-)

Seasoned Greetings.

-- 
       "Well they say, that Santa Fe, is more, than 90 miles away"

{ihnp4!crash, hplabs!hp-sdd!crash}!gryphon!richard || richard@gryphon.CTS.COM