The Font Thickens
December 9th, 2008
Another excellent pun!
I need to start this off by saying: I am not a lawyer. I don’t pretend that any of this is legally sound and recommend you consult with your own lawyer before taking any of this advice.
This is getting more and more interesting, while simultaneously getting more and more confusing. I’ve been reading up on copyright law as it pertains to fonts and discovered some interesting things. It looks like, in the US at least, that only the “font software” can be copyrighted. The “font software” is the font file (TTF, or whatnot). The image of the font once it’s rendered can not be copyrighted. So using a image rendered from a font is ok, as long as the person who rendered the image owned a license to the font.
What I think this means is that as long as the game itself doesn’t include a copy of the font software, but instead only uses images that contain the font, then it’s OK as long as I own a standard license for the font. However, it looks like EULAs trump the copyright laws, so I’m reading through a bunch of those very carefully now. It’s not as much fun as it sounds…
It’s really hard finding reliable information on any of this, but here are a few links I’ve found:
- Font Licensing and Protection Details (scripts.sil.org)
- Legal Issues with using fonts? (typophile.com)
- Font licensing (forums.indiegamer.com)
- Fonts, licenses, distribution, and legality (developer.popcap.com)
Good times…
Owen