Update: Bejeweled replies to Rockbox [LWN.net]

Update: Bejeweled replies to Rockbox

Posted Apr 19, 2006 8:10 UTC (Wed) by Wol (guest, #4433)
In reply to: Update: Bejeweled replies to Rockbox by stevenj
Parent article: Rockbox gets cease-and-desisted

Even being identical is not necessarily infringement ... independent creation is an absolute defence, and if the code underlying the images is different (bitmap as opposed to vector, or autogenerated by program code, or whatever).

Rockbox should refer Haas to the font vendors and find several examples where IDENTICAL fonts have been declared NOT to be copyright violations. I think there are several points at which Helvetica and Univers are identical, along with several of the Swiss variants. There's probably examples within the Times family. Etc etc.

It might be an idea to ask Groklaw and see if they can come up with stuff! Basically, this Haas is talking out his rear end, and there is legal precedent we can use to stuff this hole, should we wish :-)

Cheers,
Wol

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Update: Bejeweled replies to Rockbox

Posted Apr 19, 2006 12:43 UTC (Wed) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link]

That's true. I believe Microsoft cloned Helvetica and called it Arial, where even all the font metrics are identical to make sure font substitution works automatically. (If I remember correctly.) They did it for many typefaces, and I don't believe they payed any royalities since they had to change the names.

Update: Bejeweled replies to Rockbox

Posted Apr 19, 2006 12:57 UTC (Wed) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link]

This turned out to be a bad example after some Googling. Apparently Microsoft hired Monotype for this work, who were too professional to completely clone the typeface and it turned out quite different (not as nice, in my opinion) with only identical metrics. But I'm sure there are other, better, examples.