From: Hans Aberg (haberg@math.su.se)
Date: Tue Sep 18 2007 - 05:26:13 CDT
On 18 Sep 2007, at 09:22, Peter Constable wrote:
> Hans Aberg replied to my message:
>
>> If there is a valid license entered.
>
> If you have a copy of a font provided by some vendor/distributor
> authorized by the owner of the IP, there are some licensing terms
> applicable, expressed or unexpressed. If the vendor has chosen not
> to communicate license terms, then I'd guess both they and you are
> in a legally ambiguous situation. But if there is are license terms
> that have been communicated, then *that* is what determines whether
> you are allowed to make changes to the software, not any evaluation
> you may make as to whether the change constitutes IP or not.
I did not deal with fonts specifically. Some distinguish between a
proper license, where the licenser makes a unilateral declaration of
her rights, and a contract, where two parties give up their rights
mutually. A proper license can be unilateral, but contract can not.
And what is called a license, it seems me, is often a contract.
Now, fonts are special, because when using it, the idea is to
redistribute it. So, the font copyright owner should have control
over that redistribution, as long as it does not conflict with normal
exploitation of the work:
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/trtdocs_wo033.html#P83_10885
The normal use of a font would be to use it in typeset text, I gather.
> From: William J Poser [mailto:wjposer@ldc.upenn.edu]
>
>>> What you can and can't do with a font depends on the license
>>> granted, not speculation on where the IP lies.
>
> Bill responded:
>
>> That is false. If there's no IP, there's no need for a license.
>
> And in response to another message:
>
>> In the absence of a license, you have no right to do anything with
>> the software. Your ability to do anything with it arises from your
>> acceptance of the license, which therefore governs what you may do.
>
> A digital font is a software IP item.
All software is protected as literary works:
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/trtdocs_wo033.html#P56_5626
> What a licensee of a font can or cannot do with a font is
> determined by the license agreement.
The copyright owner only controls the distribution, not the ownership
rights of individual copies, unless the one in protection of the copy
by mutual, voluntary agreement gives that up. Then, if that should be
enforceable, there needs to be proof of such an agreement: who the
person is, what the person agrees to, that it has been made, and that
it is voluntary.
Hans Åberg
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