It’s not murky at all. Typeface DESIGNS are not protected by US copyright, but font software (that is, a digital outline font in any common format) is.

I wrote about the various legal protections for fonts at some length on my blog, here: http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2006/01/legal_protectio.html

Cheers,

T

If you remember, we already discussed availability of FontForge tutorials at OFL.org site

What you have written is very useful and I’m encouraged by your words.

However, you are making one assumption in that Open Font Library is trying to appeal to font designers. This is not defined. Hopefully, through discussion and contribution by people like yourself, other artists, designers, and developers, something will come of Open Font Library.

The main point though about Open Font Library is that it is in a sleeper state for a bout a year while infrastructure from Open Clip Art Library and ccHost are good enough to be used by an Open Font Library.

In the meantime, all those interested will hopefully speak up, join the mailing list and help to define all that is not defined, possible community included.

But now I’m going to say some things that might sound harsh. Please take them in the spirit of constructive criticism in which they’re meant.

The legal situation for copyright of typeface designs is indeed murky, with the US law as written stating fairly plainly that typefaces are not copyrighted. However, the interpretation of this law is nowhere nearly as clear. If you haven’t already, go read Judge Whyte’s order in Adobe vs. SSi.

In addition, as Josh says, I believe there are other countries in which copyright does cover font designs. I’m not sure which ones they are.

But it’s really the underlying attitude here that’s likely to get you into real trouble. In the typography world, it is _way_ not ethical to copy typeface designs. Copyright and (to a larger extent in US law) trademarks are the legal teeth behind this ethical principle.

Basically, if you’re going to go to the trouble of making ripoff copies of existing fonts, why not spend a little more time and energy and make original designs instead? Then there’s a real contribution to the world, and a takes nothing from the designers (and the foundries that maintain ownership) of the original fonts. There are indeed some who feel that releasing good fonts freely poisons the market for professional designers, but I don’t mind pissing them off if the side effect is something new, something that is in some way better than what’s come before.

You want to make a site for free fonts. That’s cool. But, to really succeed, you’re going to have to make it appealing to both producers and consumers of free fonts. Why will someone releasing a font want to use your site? There has to be an attitude of valuing the work that goes into making fonts.

Here’s what I would want from such a site:

1. Thoughtful reviews, criticism, and feedback. If I submit a font that is truly professional quality, I want it recognized as such. If I don’t, I’d like feedback that will help me get there. A great deal of that feedback will come from other font designers (the critique boards at typophile are a good example of how such a community can work).

2. Present the fonts. Show the font front and center. Myfonts.com has set the standard for how this is done in the commercial world. There’s no reason why a free site can’t do it even better. In fact, the ability to freely create GIF’s is a feature that makes professional font designers nervous, so it’s often crippled in one way or another, but if the font is free, there need be no such limitations. The mudTyper at vllg.com would be even cooler.

3. Render the samples well. That means good antialiasing. It means kerning. It means getting ligatures and “smart quotes” right by default. It means subpixel positioning. It means not using the hints in the font if that would in any way degrade the quality of the rendering. It doesn’t have to mean LCD subpixel rendering, but if you’ve got a good implementation of that, it wouldn’t hurt.

4. A feature I’d really love is the ability to submit individual glyphs for an existing font. This would be immediately useful for people wanting to extend the character set repertoire, but it could also be used for loosely-coupled collaboration to improve fonts. See the “Freestyle Remix Challenge” thread at typophile for an intriguing glimpse at what might come of such a thing.

Sorry if I’m coming across as something of a prima donna here. I really want a good site for free fonts to exist, and I’d love to take part in it. But I’m not convinced that you understand what it’s gonna take to make font designers happy.