Re: Web Fonts

Also sprach Daniel Glazman:

 > > Håkon Lie pointed out in his XTech presentation that according to 
 > > research by an unnamed corporation, there are 500 free ($0) fonts on the 
 > > Web. You don't need a DRM scheme with free-as-in-beer fonts. If the 
 > 
 > Håkon only forgot to mention that in that set, the fonts people use the
 > most are "free" copies of existing commercial fonts...

Some of them look similar, but that's not illegal. 

 > Only geeks like us have heard about those free fonts. Make them famous
 > and widely distributed and the copyright owners will sue the copy
 > makers. The question is not "will they sue?", the question is "when?".

Copyright is certainly an issue wrt. fonts. The name of a font can be
copyrighted, as can any executable code inside (e.g.) truetype files.
However, the outline of glyphs isn't protected. You can -- in all
relevant jurisdictions, I believe -- print out hi-res renditions, scan
the printouts and generate new font files.

-h&kon
              Håkon Wium Lie                          CTO °þe®ª
howcome@opera.com                  http://people.opera.com/howcome