Received: from blue.fontbureau.com (208.194.229.120) by lb3.listbot.com with SMTP; 14 Jul 1999 14:15:26 -0000 Subject: Similar Disgraces Date: Wed, 14 Jul 99 10:21:04 -0400 From: David Berlow To: >We do agree : most of our work has been laid out by ancestors, and >therefore, our work is most often an exercize in recreation with some >variations, more than pure originality. Fred Goudy said, Idunno, in the 1930's, "The old guys stole all our best designs." There's also a lot of talk here about how types were "lifted" during the photocomposition days, and how: >> if people feel like there are many instances where ITC has >> been carrying plagarized fonts, then why not say something >> about it to the group? > >Because it's scary -and sometimes stupid- to stand alone >against somebody much bigger than you, and somebody who >you might want to submit fonts to in the future! Speaking of which, in around 1992, Microsoft, sometimes considered to be a bigger scarier company than most, decided they needed to incorporate versions of the 35 Laserwriter fonts into the second offering of TrueType fonts they were planning. They had already done Courier, Arial-vetica and Times but they could not get "good enough" terms from ITC or Linotype to license them, so they engaged a "reputable" foundry my quote's/thier term, to make "compatible" versions of ITC Zapf Chancery, ITC Zapf Dingbats, ITC Bookman and ITC Avant Garde, Century Schoolbook and the rest. Great wringing of hands and bashing of heads followed as well as a court case that ITC and Monotype engaged in at some great expense (while Microsoft went off to write the licensing agreements that has led them to their current courtroom). That was also the end of the buddy system among the old foundries. It demonstrated to me, among others, that the gravity exerted by commerce was going to pull apart the old order completely (not just at the seams), and that the law of this land, which states that type designs are utilitarian objects, and not protectable design objects, is going to rule forever. So, since deigns are NOT PROTECTABLE IN THIS COUNRTY, I stopped jumping up and down every time Mel came out of the democratized woodwork with Melvetica in tow, claiming a great new type design. Type designers are protected by trademark, by patent, and by software copyright and that's that. I myself spend greatly to take advantage of this that I have by trademarking and copyrighting religiously. If Mel violates those laws he gets his day in court if he doesn't go away without my products. Most of the time Mel soon subsides into the sea, because it just ain't proffitable to make a high quality (and marketable) typefaces, legally, in this country (unless a large company pays you 5-6 figures per style to do it ;-). This leaves the people who are really in the industry (defined as those who practice it for love of it despite it's obvious diseconomy), to continue with their creative and technical progress. And that's what's required today to profittably fond: Creativity and/or technical progress and the love of it. When companies (designers) stop doing or having those things, they soon sink into the sea of lookalikes and goofball fonts, never to be important again (some actually start out that way but no one's told them). Back to Goudy's comment, fifty or more years after he said what he said, and tens, no hundreds of thousands of fonts later --- the old ideas have been stolen again. The ideas Goudy stole have been stolen again, even better than before, I might hope, and the ideas that are left or thin slices of the possibilites that often fall close to each other. Big...Deal. Type Designers--- Make your faces! Make 'em do things no one else's do! Get your trademarks! Copyright your work! Stop looking in the rearview mirror and stop getting all excited about lookalikes you have nothing to do with! And love it :) Longer than usual, sorry.