Re: the truth which dare not speak it's name

On Jul 9, 2009, at 6:50 AM, Mikko Rantalainen wrote:

> Obviously, I'm not a lawyer, but why do fonts require this extra
> protection when every other media and file formats do fine with just
> copyright law?

Have you ever signed a contract and been asked to initial a bunch of  
extra stuff? It seems to me that when I sign the contract, I am  
agreeing to everything in the contract. Yet, the lawyers like to make  
you acknowledge all that extra stuff. They've decided that their job  
will be a lot easier IF they ever have to go to court and argue about  
it.

You can argue that copyright law should cover it, but we wouldn't need  
lawyers and judges if it was all that simple. Arguing that it SHOULD  
be that simple doesn't really change reality.

Shorter answer to your question: I don't know, because I am not a  
lawyer either.

A font is not an image or song. It is (these days) a sophisticated  
piece of software, with instructions and other magic which enables all  
other kinds of functionality on your computer when it's installed. If  
you've ever downloaded a software program to make your web experience  
better, you've probably had to jump through a legal hoop or two. If  
you look at it this way, what we're discussing for fonts is not that  
extraordinary.

-Christopher

Received on Friday, 10 July 2009 07:26:13 UTC