On Fri, Nov 21, 2003 at 12:19:19AM +0900, GOTO Masanori wrote:
> At Thu, 20 Nov 2003 07:44:48 -0600,
> John Hasler wrote:
> > gotom writes:
> > > In addition, font right is like "design right", not intellectual
> > > property.
> > Please explain "design right".
> In this sentence, I emphasized that font right is not intellectual
> property. And I described: "_like_ design right".
> At least in Japan, there is design right (if your don't know, try to
> find in google).
A design right is also a form of intellectual property, as that term
("intellectual property") is used in English. Copyright is one form of
intellectual property.
> However, font right is hard problem. Currently there is no definitive
> law or right in Japan. "copyright" or "design right" is closer than
> intellectual property, but copyright is difficult to apply for fonts,
> and fonts may not be registered under design right. But font vendor
> have appealed that fonts should be protected under appropriate law.
> This complicated situation makes this issue more difficult.
If their appeal is successful, and Japanese law is amended to grant the
requested font rights, I would have no objections to honoring those
rights in the future. I do not agree that we should voluntarily respect
such claims of font rights on fonts that were created *before* such a
law was enacted.
--
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer
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