I got into this mess about a year ago and wrote Font Law
I think it is important to realize that each and every font in existence has borrowed, kiped, plagiarized, stolen from other people.
NOTHING IS 100% ORIGINAL! If it were not so only specialists would be able to read it in the first place
One font-house vowed to sue anyone that used so much as a single point from their fonts.
Ridiculous! They themselves are guilty of theft.
Another example of the pot calling the kettle black.
BUT the BIG font foundries (who have stolen everything they sell - Check out the history of Arial/Helvetica, Cooper Black, etc.) have huge funds available and bushels of lawyers that can and will make your life miserable (and damage their own reputation. Look at what’s happening to the Music Industry Big Five suing their customers) if they get an opportunity. Not fair, not right, just the way things are.
IF one is forced into a court of law, an expensive lawyer can show how your font came into being and evolved through v1-v25 and is therefore totally your work alone.
There are two valid schools of thought here.
- A designer (or his boss) owns whatever is designed until … Whatever Congress has stupidly decided last.
- An infinite number of curves can be made between two points. ANY change is no longer the same design.
Between the two schools are a million differing opinions. 1% they are not the same, 25% they are not the same, etc.
My opinion is regardless of the original design, when YOU converted it to electronic media, you made thousands of decisions another designer would not have made. Therefore, the work is uniquely your own and NO ONE ELSE’S!
PS, I like your fonts!