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I was under the impression that fonts are just a collection of line arc/points.
So is this a probabilistic comparison in that, if all of the line arc/points match another font - the chances are high it was ripped?
That is an absolutely brilliant turn of events – strong evidence that the font in an anti-piracy campaign was itself arguably a copyright-infringing knock-off. Someone should sue FACT for copyright infringement – and refuse to settle.
You can't copyright a font.
Air quotes - “it’s obviously the fault of the person who cloned the font and the general public needs to be protected against such content” - end air quotes.
At the same time, it doesn’t have to be productive, it’s funny enough.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't copyright a font.
They absolutely are copyrighted and big money.
You can't copy the font files themselves, but you can make visually indistinguishable new fonts with the same shapes because the shapes are not protected by copyright.
Additionally though, some fonts have design patents, which does protect the shape. Unlike copyright which has absolutely crazy expiration (like 150 years occasionally?) these patents only cover 15 to 20 years or shorter if abandoned.
An example of Apple patenting a font valid 2017 to 2032: https://patents.google.com/patent/USD786338S1/en
It is quickly turning into one of these things that there are laws for, and everyone thinks it is rediculous, it is never enforced and DE facto not a law.
And what a shame that is.
Can someone explain to me how you determine if a font is ripped/stolen? I was under the impression that fonts are just a collection of line arc/points. So is this a probabilistic comparison in that, if all of the line arc/points match another font - the chances are high it was ripped?
> went sleuthing and quickly found a PDF from the campaign site with the font embedded
So, the PDF had the font Xband Rough embedded inside of it.
Very early in my design education (late 90's) I was taught that fonts are fonts and the more you have, the better you tool set would be. As a graphic designer I definitely made things with fonts I had downloaded. It wasn't till I got my first serious design job at an agency where I quickly learned about purchasing and licensing fonts. Even if I could "find" a missing font, I wasn't allowed to use it. We needed to get…
To clarify: the original font is named "FF Confidential" (which the post doesn't even mention).
The seemingly illegal clone is called "XBAND Rough".