Re: Fonts and Copyrights

["Walker, Arlen P" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM>]

      What are the copyrights on fonts?  How would I find out about the
      copyrights on certain fonts?  We were thinking of making some fonts
      available on our Intranet corporate-wide, but don't want to infringe
      on copyrights.

Font copyright is currently being redefined into a much more acceptable
form. It used to be the only part of a digital font that could be
copyrighted is the program code which actually draws the letters.

Some recent lawsuits by Adobe have resulted in one sensible judge ruling
that not only is the code copyrightable, but also the exact placement of
the
points which characterize the letter shape involves enough creativity that
it is copyrightable as well.

But I suspect that's not the aim of your question. You've probably acquired
some commercial fonts from a foundry and want to put them on the intranet
to
distribute them throughout your company. Without knowing more details
(terms
of the license they were purchased under in particular) it's not possible
to answer the question authoritatively, but I'd suspect that's not legal.


Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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