Ownership Of Font Styles?

jesse.k asks: "I'm curious about the copyright ownership of typefaces, specifically homemade copies of commercial faces. I've seen a great deal of fonts made to look like popular movie logos (Bladerunner, Fight Club, Star Wars, The Matrix), and I was wondering what is the legality of this? If one creates a similar looking font from scratch, does this fall under fair use? If one decides to distribute the font, what type of legal issues would it face, even if it is distributed in non-profit manner? I ask this, because even respectable free font archives on the Internet always seem to have at least a couple derivative fonts."

Comments

Re:Fonts are art works

[drix]

Actually, fonts are not art works, which can be copyrighted (e.g. logos). But why reinvent the wheel? This has all been said before, so I'll paraphrase:

Typefaces are viewed by US law as a utilitarian device, much like a pencil or hammer, and do not meet current copyright guidelines.

There you have it. I suppose back when metallic typefaces were in widespread usage they could have seemed a lot more analgous to a hammer or pencil, but it's pretty obvious that that argument is irrelevant now.

Adobe did not technically win the suits that you mention on the basis that their fonts are copyrightable - they won it because the defendant infringed on their "font software". IANAL, but I think that this was just some sort of fancy legal doublespeak or maneuvering since software obviously is copyrightable. I do remember reading that the distinction was an important one, because the judge, by using the "font software" term, set no precident for fonts themselves being copyrightable.

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