Re: Typographic copyright (was: Emory HTML claim)

On Wed, 20 Mar 1996, Martin Perlberger wrote:
> >
> > Terry Carroll wrote:
> >
> > a document using that font without permission to use the font? If I
> > want to photocopy a journal article, do I now have to worry about
> > identifying and contacting the font owner as well as the author for
> > permission?
>
> Why not? What is the difference with quoting a line from a poem in
> an otherwise unrelated article?

Which is probably a primary reason why the copyright office denied protection to typefaces in the first place. The difficulties which would result from trying to track down font copyrights so as to get permissions or to pay royalty fees would end up forcing all reproduction of text to occur by scanning and retypesetting with fonts one owns, simply to eliminate the "font problem". Fair use and "with permission" photocopying regardless of font issues is a far better option, and the copyright office should be applauded for their decision.

Maurice Robinson
<mrobinsn[_at_]mercury.interpath.com> Received on Sun Mar 24 1996 - 05:18:17 GMT