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You wouldn't steal a font

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Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#41

Post by EvanAnderson »

sct202 wrote: post #33
crazygringo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no evidence XBAND Rough was extracted from a digital source bit-for-bit, unless someone can point to any? It seems like it was just a hobbyist project to recreate the look of the font from the anti-piracy ads? Which is 100% legal. Edit: OK, so the original font appears to be "FF Confidential"? Why didn't the post even mention that? So maybe it is a digital clone, which would be illegal. But then strange that…

Idk if it's provable how it was recreated but if you type in "XBAND Rough" into the sampler box at the bottom of the page https://www.myfonts.com/collections/ff-confidential-font-fon... and compare to https://fontzone.net/font-details/xband-rough it's exactly the same and the letter splotching is very distinct in the lower case letters.

If I were going to knock it off I'd duplicate the splotching exactly, too. I'd prepare as sample as a bitmap, use any of the various raster-to-vector tracers on it to get an SVG, clean up the SVG of any conversion artifacts, then make it into a type format. (Heck, there's probably a fun problem in here to train an algorithm to do the cleanup and conversion. You could probably knock-off the hinting and ligatures, too.)

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#42

Post by shadowgovt »

tossandthrow wrote: post #16

The moral background for copyright is in free fall these days. 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.

It's worth noting that the moral background (at least in terms of political philosophy in the US) was always rooted in practicalities. The Constitution even includes the qualifier "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." The moment a protection works against those goals, it's on shaky ground. And that ground is always in flux; there's a reason Thomas Jefferson noted regarding patents that "other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrasment than advantage to society."

This is why copyright is shot-through with exceptions (for example, we give broad leeway to infringement for educational purposes, for what benefit does society gain if protection of the intellectual property of this generation stunts the growth of creative faculties of the next?). And that's usually fine, until, say, a broadly-exceptioned process to gather and catalog art and expression worldwide available online that was fed into neural net training in academic settings for decades becomes something of a different moral quality when the only thing that's changed is instead of a grey-bearded professor overseeing the machine it's a grey-templed billionaire financier.

(I submit to the Grand Council of People Reading This Thread the possibility that one resolution to this apparent paradox is to consider that the actual moral stance is "It's not fair that someone might starve after working hard on a product of the mind while others benefit from their hard work," and that perhaps copyright is simply not the best tool to address that moral concern).

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#43

Post by [deleted] »

cyberpunk wrote: post #27
jll29 wrote: post #19

What saddens me is that a lot of people are so ignorant that they don't even realize a font is something that takes creativity, tradecraft and a lot of work/time/effort to design.

I remember trying to explain to some colleagues why I paid about 100 bucks for the font I use and why I wouldn’t share it with them and they just couldn’t get it. (It’s Berkeley mono). I don’t even know how many glyphs it is (it’s thousands) but for something I’m looking at for 6-8 hours a day, every single day and is the absolute peak of perfection (at least to me), 100 bucks seems like a fucking bargain to me. shru…

[deleted]

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#44

Post by giordanol »

phony-account wrote: post #24

Is this the wrong time to rant about font licensing though? I’ve always bought and paid for fonts, but as I’ve gradually transitioned to mobile app development, I one day realized that all the fonts I bought for print are now worthless to me. These crazy outdated licenses that let you print as many magazines or books you want forever, for a one-time price. But if your hobby is making apps, then suddenly the same font…

font licensing feels like it never caught up with how software actually gets made now. charging more for app use than for mass print always seemed backwards, especially when indie devs are scraping by and a font costs more than your backend. no wonder people end up using “free alternatives” without looking too hard at where they came from.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#45

Post by [deleted] »

phony-account wrote: post #24

Is this the wrong time to rant about font licensing though? I’ve always bought and paid for fonts, but as I’ve gradually transitioned to mobile app development, I one day realized that all the fonts I bought for print are now worthless to me. These crazy outdated licenses that let you print as many magazines or books you want forever, for a one-time price. But if your hobby is making apps, then suddenly the same font…

[deleted]

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#46

Post by ndiddy »

crazygringo wrote: post #25
WillAdams wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A typeface design, in the U.S., no, but the digital font file comprising outline data and instructions, according to current U.S. law, for an overview of current case law and a proposal see: https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/chtlj/vol10/iss1/5/

There's no evidence XBAND Rough was extracted from a digital source bit-for-bit, unless someone can point to any? It seems like it was just a hobbyist project to recreate the look of the font from the anti-piracy ads? Which is 100% legal. Edit: OK, so the original font appears to be "FF Confidential"? Why didn't the post even mention that? So maybe it is a digital clone, which would be illegal. But then strange that…

In this case it seems like what happened was:

1. Catapult Entertainment made/commissioned XBAND Rough as a clone of Confidential for their use somewhere (promotional materials, PC software, who knows?). The font file contains the text "Copyright 1996 Catapult Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved".

2. The "You wouldn't steal a car" campaign pirated Catapult's copyrighted font file. I think they got away with it because Catapult was no longer in business at that point. They were acquired by Mpath Interactive in 1996 and Mpath's IP got acquired by GameSpy in 2000.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#47

Post by shadowgovt »

mrkeen wrote: post #28

They stole the music too. Anti-pirating ad music stolen [2013]: https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/01/29/3678851.h...

If one didn't know better, one could conclude the history of this ad campaign suggests it was performance art done by creatives ideologically opposed to the client.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#48

Post by Suppafly »

cyberpunk wrote: post #27
jll29 wrote: post #19

What saddens me is that a lot of people are so ignorant that they don't even realize a font is something that takes creativity, tradecraft and a lot of work/time/effort to design.

I remember trying to explain to some colleagues why I paid about 100 bucks for the font I use and why I wouldn’t share it with them and they just couldn’t get it. (It’s Berkeley mono). I don’t even know how many glyphs it is (it’s thousands) but for something I’m looking at for 6-8 hours a day, every single day and is the absolute peak of perfection (at least to me), 100 bucks seems like a fucking bargain to me. shru…

>shrug I guess these folks never sold something they made completely by themselves maybe.

Not saying font designers shouldn't get paid, but they mostly aren't making things "completely by themselves", they are mostly making derivative works from things that exist, without any consideration for the original authors.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#49

Post by gorgoiler »

phony-account wrote: post #24

Is this the wrong time to rant about font licensing though? I’ve always bought and paid for fonts, but as I’ve gradually transitioned to mobile app development, I one day realized that all the fonts I bought for print are now worthless to me. These crazy outdated licenses that let you print as many magazines or books you want forever, for a one-time price. But if your hobby is making apps, then suddenly the same font…

Whatever the answer, I would caution you to listen carefully to the most product / marketing centric person who dares speak up.

Font licensing feels like God tier product marketing.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#50

Post by shadowgovt »

cyberpunk wrote: post #27
jll29 wrote: post #19

What saddens me is that a lot of people are so ignorant that they don't even realize a font is something that takes creativity, tradecraft and a lot of work/time/effort to design.

I remember trying to explain to some colleagues why I paid about 100 bucks for the font I use and why I wouldn’t share it with them and they just couldn’t get it. (It’s Berkeley mono). I don’t even know how many glyphs it is (it’s thousands) but for something I’m looking at for 6-8 hours a day, every single day and is the absolute peak of perfection (at least to me), 100 bucks seems like a fucking bargain to me. shru…

Never really considered it, but taking a quick glance: yes, I'd pay $100 for that too, especially as my main font for programming interface.
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