CompuServe Messages

Thom: Copyright law _does not_ (and probably will not ever) cover the outline shapes of a typeface. It's just too difficult to determine where the shapes came from and whether or not they are unique. There is some contention over whether or not the _code_ required to create the outlines can be copyrighted. Present word on the street is that even the code is uncopyrightable, but I understand that the lawyers are working on a way to get this to happen. Fortunately, Metamorphosis does not deal with the code, it only deals with outlines. That's why you have to have an Adobe PostScript RIP before Metamorphosis will work. Ethically, however, the situation is much different. Our Metamorphosis manual states that no Metamorphosis output should be sold commercially, since that is at least an ethical violation of the original font creator's right to a reasonable return on his hard work. Ethically you could convert fonts with Metamorphosis for your own use, but selling those converted fonts or posting them here would be proof that you have no ethics save that of the jungle: "eat or be eaten." Earl Allen, Altsys Technical Support (who notes that the present lawyer-induced legalism of much of the behavior of the citizens of the USA has caused us a lot of trouble in the past and will continue to cause us much more trouble in the future: witness our President's excuses for invading Panama. Until Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's famous Harvard Commencement Address sinks in, we will continue to fall behind cultures like the Japanese, where honor is held in more esteem than the law. Solzhenitsyn, BTW, said, "There must be more attention paid to human obligations and less attention paid to human rights." Not stealing someone else's hard work is a kind of "paying attention to human obligations," while rampantly copying fonts for sale or posting is merely "paying attention to human rights," since it is legally within anybody's "rights" to copy font outlines with impunity.)