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The Law on Fonts and Typefaces: Frequently Asked Questions

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

The right typeface is often the key to a great logo, graphic or web design. But there’s much confusion and misinformation about typefaces, fonts and the law.

Many people do not understand the law governing the use of typefaces and fonts. Others incorrectly assume that they can freely use any typeface or font for any project.

When you purchase a commercial font, you are purchasing a license to use the font software. Your rights and obligations are defined in the End User License Agreement (EULA). Those agreements will vary among fonts and among font makers – so read them very carefully to understand what you can and cannot do with the fonts you’re licensing. For example, some agreements will restrict the number of computers on which you can install a font.

How is a font different from a typeface?

Technically, a “font” is a computer file or program (when used digitally) that informs your printer or display how a letter or character is supposed to be shown. A “typeface” is a set of letters, numbers and other symbols whose forms are related by repeating certain design elements that are consistently applied (sometimes called glyphs), used to compose text or other combination of characters.

Although many people would call “Helvetica” a font, it’s actually a typeface. The software that tells your display or printer to show a letter in “Helvetica” is the font.

What is copyright?

Copyright is a form of legal protection provided to those who create original works. Under the 1976 Copyright Act (United States), the copyright owner has the exclusive right to reproduce, adapt, distribute, publicly perform and publicly display the work. Any or all of these rights can be licensed, sold or donated to another party. One does not need to register a work with the U.S. Copyright Office for it to be automatically protected by copyright law (registration does have benefits – but we won’t be covering those in this article). For more about copyright law, you can read Small Business Legal Issues: Copyright Basics.

Does copyright law protect typefaces and fonts?

Generally, copyright law in the U.S. does not protect typefaces. Fonts may be protected as long as the font qualifies as computer software or a program (and in fact, most fonts are programs or software). Bitmapped fonts are considered to be computerized representations of a typeface (and are not protected by copyright law). On the other hand, scalable fonts (because they are incorporated as part of a program or software) are protected by copyright.

This means that copyright law (at least in the U.S.) protects only the font software, not the artistic design of the typeface.

You should remember that copyright law, and more specifically, as it relates to typefaces and fonts, varies by country. For example, the U.S. may be the only country in the western world not to recognize intellectual property rights in typeface design. The U.S. Copyright Office has unequivocally determined that fonts are not subject to protection as artistic works under the 1976 Copyright Act.

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Tags: bitmapped font, commercial fonts, copyright, copyright act, design patent, EULA, font software, fonts, glyph, intellectual property, ip, law, opentype, postscript, trademark, truetype, typeface
Posted in business, crowdsourcing, design, How To, start-up tips | 17 Comments »

Worry About People Listening To You, Not About Them Stealing Your Ideas

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

If you have a great idea for a new business, should you freely share that idea with others? What if they steal your idea?

Many entrepreneurs and small business owners obsess about keeping ideas confidential.

The vast majority of entrepreneurs and small business owners should be far more concerned about people listening to their ideas, than about people stealing their ideas.

But that doesn’t mean you should be reckless with your ideas. Here are five simple things you can do to protect your ideas (3 minute video):

Do you have other suggestions about ways to protect ideas? Do you agree that entrepreneurs shouldn’t worry about sharing their ideas with others?

Tags: entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, intellectual property, ip, protecting ideas, small business, smallbiz, startup
Posted in business, start-up tips, Strategy | 1 Comment »

New Stock Art Policy

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

The use of stock art has always been prohibited in crowdSPRING logo design projects.

Today we are announcing zero tolerance policy towards users who break this rule. Any creative who submits stock art to a logo project will have their account removed immediately and permanently along with all the work that s/he has submitted to any projects on cS.

Together with this policy change, we’ve revised the required disclosures in logo as well as logo/stationery projects to make this new policy crystal clear. The new disclosures are below (a designer is required to review and select one of the disclosures every time they upload a design in a logo and logo/stationery project).

If you want to report a stock art violation in a logo project, please use the violation report link located under any entries, or contact us please contact us.

We believe that this new policy will strengthen our community and help us to better serve buyers and their creative needs.

Thanks for your attention,

The Crew

Tags: intellectual property, ip, logo, stock art
Posted in community, crowdsourcing, Site Updates | 20 Comments »

Ask crowdSPRING: Can Creative Commons Licensed Works Be Used For Logo Design?

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

In the past, we’ve discussed why it’s unlawful to use stock images, including royalty-free stock, for logo design.

This morning in the crowdSPRING forums, we’ve been discussing whether it’s appropriate to use work licensed under a Creative Commons license, for logo design. This is an important topic and a serious issue. If you don’t have rights to your design (because you are using an image and this is not legally allowed), you harm the client, yourself, crowdSPRING, and our entire community. Such action not only violates crowdSPRING’s standards of conduct and user agreement, but you also expose yourself (and your client) to legal risk. Here is a short Q&A:

1. What is Creative Commons?

Answer: Here’s how the Creative Commons organization describes itself:

Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.

We provide free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.

Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative to copyright, but do work with copyright law to simplify ways that you can license your work to suit your own desires and requirements. Here’s a good video that explains how Creative Commons licenses can be used in commercial work.

2. Can Creative Commons licensed images be used for logo design?

Answer: No. Many designers assume that they can freely use publicly licensed images in their designs. While it may be appropriate and lawful to use images licensed under the Creative Commons for commercial use, in most graphic design projects (please carefully read the Creative Commons license so that you understand whether you have the legal right to use the image in commercial work), such images may not be used for logo design.

Some background first. Copyright is a form of legal protection provided to those who create original works. When you create original graphic designs, your work is entitled to copyright protection. Under the 1976 Copyright Act (United States), the copyright owner has the exclusive right to reproduce, adapt, distribute, publicly perform and publicly display the work. Any or all of these rights can be licensed, sold or donated to another party. Copyright laws around the world can differ in significant ways. Most countries are signatories to various international treaties and agreements governing copyright protection (such as the Berne Copyright Convention). Under the Berne Copyright Convention, if your work is protected by copyright in your own country, then your work is protected by copyright in every other country that signed the Berne Copyright Convention.

Creative Commons licenses work in a similar way. The owner of the work licensed under Creative Commons is permitted to determine how that work may be used by others.

So why is it not permissible to use a Creative Commons licensed work in logo design?

The answer to that question lies in trademark, not copyright law. A logo created for a company (or person) might be protected by copyright law (or under a Creative Commons license), but it may not be protected under trademark law.

A trademark is a word, symbol, or phrase, used to identify a particular manufacturer or seller’s products and distinguish them from the products of another. For example, the trademark “Nike” along with the famous Nike “swoosh” identify the shoes and other products made by the Nike company and distinguish them from shoes and other products made by other companies, such as Addidas. When marks are used to identify services, they are called service marks (service marks are generally treated just the same as trademarks).

Trademarks must be distinctive (capable of identifying the source of a particular good or service). Because images licensed under a Creative Commons license aren’t licensed solely for the use by one person or entity (depending on the license, anyone can use the image), those images are not distinctive.

Keep in mind that a company purchasing a logo (which often includes a mark) doesn’t want to see the mark/graphic to be used by other businesses. It’s possible that thousands of companies could end up using the same graphics in their logos. This presents numerous problems, including making it very difficult if not impossible to obtain trademark protection for a logo.

3. But what if the image is licensed under the Creative Commons for commercial use?

Answer: The answer doesn’t change, even if the image is licensed under a Creative Commons license for commercial use. You may not use Creative Commons licensed designs in logos.

Do you have other questions related to this issue? Please feel free to ask in the comments.

Tags: brand, branding, creative commons, design, intellectual property, ip, logo, stock
Posted in business, community, crowdsourcing, design, How To | 6 Comments »

How Does crowdSPRING Protect Intellectual Property?

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

UPDATED: March 17, 2010.

crowdSPRING respects intellectual property – this is one of our core values as a company (before co-founding crowdSPRING, I spent 13 years as an attorney focusing on the protection of intellectual property, for clients around the world). People often ask what crowdSPRING does to protect intellectual property. The Q&A below shares our answers to the most common questions.

1. Does crowdSPRING have specific policies to protect people’s intellectual property rights?

Answer: Yes. crowdSPRING has two specific, written policies designed to protect intellectual property. First, crowdSPRING’s Copyright Policy makes it easy for copyright owners to report alleged violations of their intellectual property rights. Second, crowdSPRING’s User Agreement prohibits people from selling, reproducing, modifying, displaying, preparing derivative works from, reposting, or using the content found on crowdspring.com – without the express written permission from the owner of the work.

2. What does crowdSPRING do to prevent people’s intellectual property from being stolen?

Answer: The International Chamber of Commerce estimates that the global fiscal loss due to theft of intellectual property is over $600 billion USD per year. Stealing someone else’s intellectual property is a crime in just about every single country on Earth. However, it is impossible to prevent people from stealing intellectual property (whether the theft occurs online or offline).

Just because it is generally impossible to prevent theft doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t make reasonable efforts to protect intellectual property. Here’s what we do at crowdSPRING:

We’ve developed and published detailed, comprehensive written policies concerning intellectual property (as you saw in the answer to question 1 above).
We’ve adopted strict policies and practices governing IP disclosures.
We’ve developed and published detailed, comprehensive written standards of conduct for creatives (see Q&A 4 below).
We’ve developed rules and procedures recognizing the importance of original ideas in projects so as to protect original ideas and prevent concept copying (see Q&A 14 below).
We make it very easy to report possible violations of intellectual property (see Q&A 5 below).
We work together with our entire community – nearly 55,000 designers strong across the world (our designers come from over 170 countries) to identify possible violations of intellectual property.
When a creative withdraws their entry, it is screened completely so that no part of it is shown. The word “withdrawn” is instead shown to buyers and other users.
We permanently bar people from crowdspring.com for violating others’ intellectual property rights (see Q&A 7-10 below).
We enforce the licensing restrictions of third parties (see for example, Q&A 13 which deals with stock images).
After a project is completed, we screen with a gray filter all except the winning entries for that project to make it very difficult to review any details associated with non-winning designs.

We have a number of other systems in place that we keep confidential, that help us to protect our community from the theft of intellectual property, and we continue to look for other technological and non-technological ways we can improve our efforts in this area. If you have suggestions, we’d love to hear in the comments to this post.

3. How does crowdSPRING inform its community about crowdSPRING’s intellectual property policies?

Answer: Every time a creative submits a design to a project, they are required to pick one of three statements about their design:

I created everything in my entry and I didn’t copy anyone else’s concept.
This design includes photos, illustrations or fonts created by others but I have the right to both use and resell.
This design includes photos, illustrations or fonts created by others and if the buyer picks it, they’ll have to buy the rights.

A creative cannot participate in a project unless they select one of those three statements. We also publish links to our policies on the participation pages, and in a creative tip’s page visible to everyone in every project.

In logo design projects, we specifically require that designers represent that their logos do not contain any form of stock art. You can read more about our strict stock art policy.

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Tags: concept copying, copyright, crowdspring, intellectual property, ip
Posted in business, community, crowdsourcing, design, Strategy | 22 Comments »

Posts Tagged ‘ip’

The Law on Fonts and Typefaces: Frequently Asked Questions