VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

[Jeffrey Kafer]

With all the critiquing going on in that the other forum, I wanted to bring up something that many may not realize. Be sure you or your graphic artist are using royalty-free fonts. Seriously. Like clip-art and music, fonts can be copyrighted and many are. And they can be really expensive to license, too.

Just something to think about if you hire an unknown artist from Guru.com or craigslist. make sure they have purchased the rights to use any fonts for your work.
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Jeff
http://JeffreyKafer.com
Voice-overload Web comic: http://voice-overload.com

[louzucaro]

Jeff,

The U.S. does NOT protect fonts by copyright, although in most cases, if brought to court, the court will side with the designer.

However, this only has to do with re-distribution of fonts and font mimicking when the new font is created with an automated tool.

Yes, fonts are software, which means if you're using a font you pay for, you can't give it to somebody else to use. However, the representation of the font in a created piece...a piece of artwork...is not considered distribution and as far as I know, there is no such thing, legally, as having to license a font to be used in something published, so long as the actual font files aren't re-distributed with the material.

(there may be certain font foundries whose policy it is to require fonts to be licensed per use, but I've never seen that)

For instance, a font that you pay for can be used to create print materials, but you cannot put it in a collection of fonts that you sell, you cannot give it to somebody else to use (legally), you cannot put it online for people to download so that your web page looks "correct".

In other words, unlike a photograph or a piece of music, for example, that you must license for each particular use according to the copyright holder's permissions, you are not prevented from using fonts in an original design, the license is what allows you to install and use the font, and it only prevents you from re-distributing the font files themselves.
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Lou Zucaro
http://www.voicehero.com

"Well, yeah, there's my favorite leaf!"

[todd ellis]

not that it has anything to do with ... well, anything, really ...

for your consideration: www.1001freefonts.com
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"i know philip banks": todd ellis
who's/on/1st?

[Yoda117]

Eltra Corp. vs. Ringer showed us that the fonts themselves are considered to be public domain and not covered under existing US Copyright law and are even somewhat exempted through the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

That said, scalable fonts (that is, those that are rendered through use of computer instructions) have been interpeted to be a "computer program" (that they needed to use quotation marks just floors me), and thus are protected under existing copyright law.

see Adobe vs. Southern Software, Inc., for more information
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Voiceovers by Gregory Houser
Philadelphia based Voice Actor

Blog - A man, a martini, and a lot of microphones

[louzucaro]

Yes, but again, this is with regard to distribution / dissemination and not use-per-project licensing.
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Lou Zucaro
http://www.voicehero.com

"Well, yeah, there's my favorite leaf!"

[JimRon]

that's interesting. when i worked at a direct mail marketing agency, we had to include the fonts we used in the pieces we designed when we sent everything to the printer. never even thought of them being copyrighted.

Wild, Wild Stuff! (oh wait, i think that phrase is trademarked.)
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Jim Feldman
www.jimfeldman.us
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jimfeldman
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JimFeldmanVoiceovers

[Jeffrey Kafer]

Copyright was the wrong term. True, you can't copyright a font, but you can get a design patent that protects your font design: http://www.martinezgroup.com/articles/1997aigaprotectfont.html

The point is, make sure your graphic artists are on the up and up and they've paid for everything they use. 'Cause in this world, I'd imagine you could get sued for hiring someone who used a pirated version of software or unlicensed material.

All of the above has the caveat of "I'm not a lawyer but..."
_________________
Jeff
http://JeffreyKafer.com
Voice-overload Web comic: http://voice-overload.com

[JimRon]

[louzucaro]

Personally, I don't agree with the laws. I think they should be copyright-able.

Even if you get a patent as Jeff pointed out, if somebody buys the font, prints it out, scans it, then traces it in software to create a "new" font based on the original, technically that's not illegal.
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Lou Zucaro
http://www.voicehero.com

"Well, yeah, there's my favorite leaf!"

[JimRon]

i agree with you on the laws, lou. if you work hard to create something, you should be able to protect that work from other people distributing it without paying some kind of royalty.

fair use is one thing, but selling something that isn't yours wouldn't qualify for fair use.

[Jeffrey Kafer]

right, Jim. The point of a design patent is so that someone can't obviously copy your design.
_________________
Jeff
http://JeffreyKafer.com
Voice-overload Web comic: http://voice-overload.com

[louzucaro]

Sadly, it's gone both ways in court...sometimes the original designer has been victorious while others, because there's no copyright, if the knockoff was "different enough", the patent wasn't enforced.
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Lou Zucaro
http://www.voicehero.com

"Well, yeah, there's my favorite leaf!"

[Yoda117]

[billelder]

I got really upset and worried when I saw this post's title until I realized the word had an "on" and not a "ar."

Nevermind.

[Jeffrey Kafer]