Re: Japanese font license problem
On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, Dylan Thurston wrote:
>On 2003-10-08, Fedor Zuev <Fedor_zuev@mail.ru> wrote:
>> In this case, it is very unlikely that TYPEBANK Co. will win
>> a lawsuit in any country. After all, similarity is not implies
>> derivative work. But it is very likely that they will threaten,
>> harass and terrorize everyyone who will ever touch their
>> "intellectual property".
>If I understood the original post correctly, TYPEBANK's font was
>copied without changes by one group (the LABO123 font), and then
>modified by two later groups who mistakenly thought the font was
>available under a free license. So it seems likely that TYPEBANK
>would win a suit in a country in which fonts are copyrightable, since
>there's a clear chain of derived works (although IANAL).
Is that PostScript font derived from some low-resolution
bitmap? Heh. Sound as silly as claim that some Prolog program
derived from C++ class library.
As I understood original post, the key point of the case is
a [high] similarity between shapes, discovered by KANOU Hiroki, and
no more.
"Standard" interpretation of copyright not counts as
derivative work any borrowing of idea, concept or principle, but
requires the copying of some amount of actual copyrightable
subject-matter. In the case of fonts, the difference between concept
of font and font shape itself is a subtile, almost
indistinguishable. This is a main reason of nonexistency of [usual]
copyright on the fonts in the majority of countries.
So, as I already said, there is very little sense in
attempts to judge this case from the law perspective. There is _no_
worldwide-recognized font copyright. And, there is _no_ standard
interpretation of the font copyrighted subject-matter even among the
countries, where font copyright existed. Therefore, IMHO, question
may be judged from the practical perspective only.
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