Fonts and copyright

[pollux]

Hi,

When i use a font from dafont for example, to design a logo. Am i in violation of the font-designers copyright?

Thank you.

[sharie]

This is what I understand about font use..You have to convert your fonts to curves or expand them and if the client wants the name of the font they have to buy the use of the font. You can't modify or change a font then rename as yours. I think though it is always safe to covert or expand all fonts in a design for several reasons. What happens when you send a file to a client or printer and your fonts were not converted or expanded, you get a mess. The printer or client might not have that certain font in their system so on the safe side always convert or expand.

Some of the other designers may know better info or correct me if I'm wrong about font use.

Below is some more info I found

The info below was found on this website Font Formats & FAQ

Copyright

You need to beware of copyright law. The individual letters of a text alphabet once printed on the page are not in themselves copyrightable, but the font name and the software programme that created them are. In other words, whilst you may modify a font you own, you may not give it a new name, nor swap copies with that nice man you met in the pub. You can, of course, give it a new family suffix to distinguish your modification from the original, such as Garamond-MyFractions, derived from Garamond-Regular.

Some modern artistic display typefaces are sufficiently tortured to carry a design patent, and you may not copy nor scan these from the printed page. You may try your own mousehand reconstruction of the original by eye alone, but you would have to ensure that your version is what is know in legal jargon as 'colourably different'. This has nothing to do with colour, but implies at least twenty points (no pun intended) of difference between the copy and its original. There have been many lengthy (and therefore expensive) court cases dealing with the similarity of artistic endeavours.



Ownership

Judging from the legal halitosis on the packaging, all typeface manufacturers want you to believe that when you buy computer software you are not purchasing the program but merely a licence to use it. However, in the UK, such 'vapourware' may well come under the Unfair Contract Terms Act.

The Law Society Circular of December 1994, entitled 'Your Business and the Law', states on page 3 that...
"For years, customers of computer companies have laboured under a number of delusions. They imagine that software, although physically tangible, is some magic commodity which cannot be treated as goods. If that were so, software would not need to be of merchantable or satisfactory quality or fit for its particular purpose under the Sale of Goods Act."

In the UK, all software can be returned if unsatisfactory for its purpose, (St. Alban's District Council v ICL, 1990) and, like other goods, can be resold secondhand. Copying it to pass on to someone else is, of course, very naughty and will give you bad karma.

[theli7s]

This is from their website(dafont.com)

"The fonts presented on this website are their authors' property, and are either freeware, shareware, demo versions or public domain. The licence mentioned above the download button is just an indication. Please look at the readme-files in the zips or check the indicated author's website for details, and contact him/her if in doubt. If no author/licence is indicated that's because we don't have information, that doesn't mean it's free."

[pollux]

Thanks both of you!

Some 'fun' fonts, or illustrated fonts are more like artworks themself. Sometimes i see a typographic logo, just plainly a typed out name. This is where i think copyright might come into play.

In future, i will expand all my lines, and make sure i read the readme file to check if the font is fully freeware.

TY!

[jammydoug]

Hi
Are the fonts in Photo shop copyright free?I am working on a logo for a company and I don't really know if I can use one of the fonts from Photo shop in the logo without running into some copyright infringement.
_________
Facebook apps

[pollux]

Hi
Are the fonts in Photo shop copyright free?I am working on a logo for a company and I don't really know if I can use one of the fonts from Photo shop in the logo without running into some copyright infringement.
_________
Facebook apps

The fonts you see in photoshop are the same fonts installed in your windows\fonts\ folder. So the same rules apply to them, unless you downloaded special fonts.

If they are the standard fonts that came with your PC, your probably safe to use them!

[aik]

So I conclude that a font used in a text is no longer bound with copyright, if it is not in a text form (converted to line or path). Please correct me if I'm wrong..

[asIm]

All the free fonts available in the market are licensed to for personal use not for any commercial...so if client wants to use some font I think they need to bye it...

[MrHUNK]

Is it a good practise to use free fonts for designing?

[FISdesign]

Do clients need to bye the font used in their logo for their future uses in their templates or just because they use it in their logo?

[RemyD]

There is a lot of good information here regarding fonts and copyrights. However how do you know the copyright information of fonts that are on your system? I realize that I could just google each font individually, but what I am wondering is if there is a central location for font copyright information and use.

[RtkLancelot]

Interesting topic for discution, and this is a problem that few people knew about it.