Well they're programs tbf

Is this fair? It actually takes a lot of work (I assume) to design letter's shapes. Of course, not counting those who just trace 16-th century font without paying a compensation.

> Of course, not counting those who just trace 16-th century font without paying a compensation

I can't tell which way you mean this, but that sounds similar to the situation with most public domain musical compositions - the manuscripts may be completely open but a specific typesetting can still under copyright. And like that case, "just" tracing a font / typesetting a composition is still a fair amount of work.

> takes a lot of work

The "sweat of the brow" argument is not valid in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow

>Under the Feist ruling in the US, mere collections of facts are considered unoriginal and thus not protected by copyright, no matter how much work went into collating them.

This person isn't just collecting existing letter shapes; inventing a new letter shapes would be protected by copyright?

You aren't inventing a new letter shapes - letters already exist. You are modifying how they look, and that's not considered creative enough.

There are lots of things that can't be copyrighted.

For example you can't copyright an anatomy drawing: https://www.skeletaldrawing.com/licensing (i.e. the layout of the bones, etc) but you can copyright your specific drawing - but someone else could draw in the same style and not violate your copyright.

Same here: You can't copyright the shape of the letters, but you can copyright you specific ttf program (expression), but someone else can make the same letter shapes if they want.

You can say the same about drawing of a cat: you are not inventing new animal here. But for some weird reason cats are copyrighted and letters are not.

There are many ways to draw the same letter, as there are many ways to draw a cat.

Also if one draws letters that look like cats, will they fall under copyright protection?

If someone draws a cat, and the next person draws basically the same cat, there is no copyright infringement.

You need something "extra", some kind of style that is distinct.

I'm not saying your drawing has no copyright - it does, if someone reproduces it exactly that's illegal. I'm saying if someone makes the same type of drawing, in the same style, that's not infringement - even if they looked at yours, as long as they drew it themselves.

> inventing a new letter shapes would be protected by copyright?

It is settled law that letter shapes aren't copyrightable. Period.

Who are you paying for a 400-year old font? Who deserves to get paid for a 400-year old font?

They are computer programs. Not sure why you’d crudely insult the judge for saying that.

Are fonts really programs? Is a digital image file also a program?

A font file is more like a config that’s used by your OS to render something, there’s no real interactivity in fonts (except some ligatures but those are just static tables, right?).

Yes. And they're also copyrightable.

That's why this shit is so stupid.

Many things are copyrightable that shouldn't be. When you can spend millions of dollars lobbying Congress to get them to extend copyright protections beyond reason, that tends to happen.

In the United States, it is settled precedent that typefaces are not copyrightable. That doesn't change just because they became digital in 1984.

Fonts aren't just programs, they can contain and run an entire AI model to give you access to an LLM in any program running Harfbuzz: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40766791

I would say that counts as interactivity.

TrueType, which has been around since the 80s, includes a full Turing-complete instruction set for hinting: https://developer.apple.com/fonts/TrueType-Reference-Manual/...

This is sophistry. Does anyone write apps in ttf? Can I download a calendar app? Has anyone even cranked out some proof of concept?

Fonts aren't software in any meaningful sense of the word.

We’re talking about copyright here. A typeface on its own isn’t copyrightable. The judge ruled that turning a typeface into a digital font involves writing a nontrivial computer program, which is a creative work under US copyright law. That simply is true. It doesn’t matter whether you can write “apps” in TrueType; you can write digital fonts in it.