Re: Fonts & Copyright

G'Day Sharon,

At 16:12 13/10/99 -0700, Sharon Elix wrote:
>I have included various "wing ding" like characters from a font know as "Mini
>Pics Red Rock" in a graphic display that I've designed for a site's front
>page. Would using these font characters in my graphic constitute a breach of
>copyright?

If you obtained this font legally (disclaimer below), then you are legally 
entitled to create graphics with it on your machine - no problem involved.

You own the resulting graphics and are free to display them.  Even though 
others can view your graphics produced with that font, they don't have 
access to the font itself and cannot use it to create their own works.

Breach of copyright WILL occur if you offer the relevant source files to 
allow others to install the font on their systems - but that is an entirely 
different matter.

Disclaimer:
Firstly, don't for a minute think I'm accusing you of obtaining fonts 
illegally :)

Quite often fonts come "packaged" with the software we purchase.  While the 
software licences for those products should cover those included fonts, it 
isn't always easy to keep track of where they came from.  I'd look at the 
graphics/desktop publishing packages you have installed and see if they are 
responsible for providing it.  Unfortunately this detail isn't usually well 
covered in the associated program documentation.

Alternatively, there are many fonts you can obtain as freeware and 
trialware.  In such cases the "conditions of use" should be included with 
the fonts when you download them.

I can't think of a good "free font" site at present, but I'm sure if you 
search the archives for "font" you will find a few.


Chris Higgs <c.higgs(at)landfood.unimelb.edu.au>
Institute of Land and Food Resources
University of Melbourne http://www.landfood.unimelb.edu.au
Firefighter, Werribee Fire Brigade, CFA

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