Ubuntu changing its look

Posted Mar 4, 2010 6:55 UTC (Thu) by joseph_mayer (guest, #61137)
In reply to: Ubuntu changing its look by abadidea
Parent article: Ubuntu changing its look

It also looks like a DTL-Prokyon ripoff. That is a expensive
commercial font. One can smell trouble ahead. See:
http://www.dutchtypelibrary.nl/Prokyon_rdrct.html

Ubuntu changing its look

Posted Mar 4, 2010 8:22 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (4 responses)

Typefaces are not copyrightable. You can 'rip them off' all you feel like and it's completely and perfectly legal. There is a long history behind of this and it exists for good reason. (The modern concept of 'IP' is just flat-out insane.)

Now the actual scalable font _implementation_, the *.ttf file or whatever, would be copyrightable (for good reasons) (but not bitmap fonts, maybe ironically). As long as you made your own fonts from scratch you'd be fine. You can copy whatever typeface you want, but the actual font is something you'd have to make on your own.

Now all of this is USA law; it varies in other countries. If you want to protect your typefaces in the USA they are patentable. Again for good reason. Good luck getting one though... patent laws for typefaces were established in saner times and thus you actually have to acheive something remarkable to get one, Seeing how typefaces have been around since the dawn of printing presses that is going to be extremely difficult to accomplish. (Entirely unlike software patents.)

IANAL

Ubuntu changing its look

Posted Mar 4, 2010 9:09 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (1 responses)

You might want to read

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal_considerations_for_fonts

Ubuntu changing its look

Posted Mar 11, 2010 20:05 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

Also consider the case of the Fedora logo: Fedora has got permission to use that typeface for that word and use only.

Ubuntu changing its look

Posted Mar 4, 2010 13:10 UTC (Thu) by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375) [Link] (1 responses)

The memepool needs to know the concept of a 'design patent' (U.S.) or design rights (E.U.) for the appearance of an item, not how it works or is constructed. Design rights were created in the UK to to stop people using copyright to stifle a market for similarly-designed items or spare parts. the legislation was created to assist entrepreneurial endeavours. The governing tests for infringement of a design {right,patent} monopoly centre around whether an alleged copy is 'substantially similar'.

Typefaces *are* copyrightable as a creative work and additionally can be protected by design patents (e.g. US design patent D1 is for a typeface) or design rights.

Stating the myth that rules about creative endeavour, invention and reputation which are lumped together under the banner of 'intellectual property' are 'flat-out insane' (sadly) won't stop people using those rules to steal your lunch.

K3n.

Ubuntu changing its look

Posted Mar 4, 2010 16:53 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Typefaces *are* copyrightable as a creative work and additionally can be protected by design patents (e.g. US design patent D1 is for a typeface) or design rights.

Yes.. I did mention that Typefaces are patentable in the USA, but the patents are rare and hard to get. I think there are a total of 150 patents in total and they last specifically for 14 years. The latest typeface I could find that was patented was Lucida and that was in 1994 and is expired now. But I did not do a exhaustive search.

And it's true that Fonts are copyrightable in the USA. Not all fonts.. scalable fonts are copyrightable, but bitmaps of fonts are not. Typefaces are not copyrightable.

Now in the UK and in Germany this may be different, but I only know the USA laws.

One thing to keep in mind is that:
Fonts != Typeface

In at least scalable digital fonts are concerned. Font is the implimentation and Typeface is the appearence if I understand everything correctly. (I am not sure of that).

IANAL

Ubuntu changing its look

Posted Mar 4, 2010 8:35 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (4 responses)

Oh, and besides that they don't even look alike. There are simularities, like with the point on the lower case 'u' and how the lower half of the 'b' shape looks.

But the porportions of the shapes, relative thinknesses of the lines to the size of the font, and most of the other shapes are different. For example the 't' is very different.

Ubuntu changing its look

Posted Mar 4, 2010 13:22 UTC (Thu) by joseph_mayer (guest, #61137) [Link] (3 responses)

Have a look at the direct comparison here:
http://typophile.com/node/68016

Ubuntu changing its look

Posted Mar 4, 2010 16:58 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

Yeah. Like I said they are different. The shapes are different, the porportions are different. There
is simularity in how the points on the 'n' 'b' and other shapes are, but otherwise they are
different.

Ubuntu changing its look

Posted Mar 4, 2010 17:25 UTC (Thu) by joseph_mayer (guest, #61137) [Link] (1 responses)

If you look closely at the comparison you'll immediately see
that the designer of the Ubuntu logo took DTL-Prokyon as the
starting point of his design. He changed a few Bézier curves
here and there, but that's not enough to call it a different
and original design. Hell, even the hight of the horizontal
line of the »t« is identical.

Ubuntu changing its look

Posted Mar 4, 2010 20:04 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Maybe he did use it as the starting point for his new point. Maybe not. I suppose you could ask him. There hundreds of thousands san serif fonts all over the place. They all follow the same basic structure and have similar elements.

Google'ng around for 'san serif' you can find lots of fonts that are very similar, but have different heights, shapes of the o's are all different, or thinknesses, or the 't' is different. So on and so forth.

On these two fonts the opennings are different shapes. The letters go to different heights. The 't' is completely different. The 'U' is capitolized as Ubuntu is a proper noun, but in the font you pointed out the capitalized versions are very different hieght and use different shapes then the lower case ones. Notice how in order to get the horizontal line in the 't' to line up the other guy had to make all the other lines in the fonts be offset from each other. The bottom of the 't' does not line up, neither does the top. So on and so forth. Not to mention they are completely different shapes.

While the one you pointed out may have inspired the ubuntu font, there is no way that these are the same ones. When the Ubuntu guy releases the ttf files for the font in a few weeks then you will be able to have a more solid comparison.