Including geometry dervied from copyrighted fonts in open source software I'm developing a open source software that (internally) uses font glyph identification. The glyphs I'd like to detect come from copyrighted fonts, to which I have personal use licenses. By font glyph detection, I mean the following: Let's say a user of my software has a font file. A brief technical primer on fonts Broadly, a font file is a table which says "draw the character a like this" for each character supported by the font. We'll call a character X the abstract idea of the letter X and the glyph "X" a visual representation of how to show that abstract idea of that letter. These "draw" instructions are usually vector artworks (like SVG, which allow for resizing of the art without the pixelation you get if you were to, say, enlarge a desktop background JPEG to twice its size). These draw instructions can be fed into some math which produces a rasterized version of the glyph, which is a format that can directly inform pixels on a screen or dots printed by a printer. Usually, the glyph that a font file has for the character a actually draws an "a". But, in this case, the user's font file has been compressed. For example, let's say only the a and c characters are used. In the user's font, instead of saying: character a is drawn like "a" character b is drawn like (nothing) character c is drawn like "c" They remove the b and move the c up one: character a is drawn like "a" character b is drawn like "c" Given the letters "abba" to be drawn, the only way to recognize that that actually corresponds to (draws) the letters "acca" is to recognize that the b character in the user's font actually draws a "c". This recognition is what I mean by glyph identification. To do this glyph identification, I understand that I can't just include copyrighted fonts in software that I plan to open source. I also don't need to include the entire fonts. I just need some information about how the glyphs are drawn to be able to do identification. To this end, my plan is to derive information from each copyrighted glyph and only include this derived information in my software. The derivation would work as follows: Take a glyph from a copyrighted font and draw it at a small size. Place dots around the edges of the drawn glyph and record their coordinates. These coordinates (in order) would be the derived information. What's (potentially) important to note is that from these coordinates you cannot derive the original font (it's a similar problem to scaling an SVG vs scaling a JPEG, except the pixelation with glyphs would make them unreadable—likely undiscernible—at most sizes). The only thing that could potentially be derived is a rough rasterization of the glyphs rendered at that small size, but this would require significant technical effort (eg. it's not as easy as opening an image or installing a font on your computer). Would including such derived information be a violation of the copyright on the font? Does my method of derivation make my work a derivative work of the copyrighted fonts? I believe their may be an argument for fair use here as one of the factors for evaluating fair use says: Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work: Here, courts review whether, and to what extent, the unlicensed use harms the existing or future market for the copyright owner’s original work. In assessing this factor, courts consider whether the use is hurting the current market for the original work (for example, by displacing sales of the original) and/or whether the use could cause substantial harm if it were to become widespread. Because it is impossible to recover the original font from my derived information, this software would likely have no impact on sales of the original work (because the only way to obtain the copyrighted font would be to buy it). Would this constitute fair use? tl;dr I have an open source software program which needs to use points derived from copyrighted fonts to perform part of its function. The points need to be included with the software, but they can't be used to reproduce the copyrighted font file. Is a violation of the fonts' copyright? A quick aside: This problem has some parallels to Optical Character Recognition (OCR), for which they are many open source libraries. These libraries include machine learning models (of which my software could be considered a gross simplification), which have been trained on copyrighted text. The same idea holds that you couldn't reconstruct the copyrighted fonts from the open source OCR libraries. Unfortunately, using an OCR library is not well suited for my specific problem.
The US does not provide copyright protection for font design. As long as you dont distribute font generating programs, that would themselves be copyrighted, you are not infringing. Your derived information is okay because it is derived from a non-copyrightable work and is therefore not a derivative work. https://law.stackexchange.com/a/25673/1340
What SE can do is controlled primarily by the Terms of Service. What most matters is the section on Subscriber Content, which says: You agree that any and all content, including without limitation any and all text, graphics, logos, tools, photographs, images, illustrations, software or source code, audio and video, animations, and product feedback (collectively, “Content”) that you provide to the public Network (collectively, “Subscriber Content”), is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Overflow on a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive basis pursuant to Creative Commons licensing terms (CC-BY-SA), and you grant Stack Overflow the perpetual and irrevocable right and license to access, use, process, copy, distribute, export, display and to commercially exploit such Subscriber Content, even if such Subscriber Content has been contributed and subsequently removed by you... This means that you cannot revoke permission for Stack Overflow to publish, distribute, store and use such content and to allow others to have derivative rights to publish, distribute, store and use such content. The CC-BY-SA Creative Commons license terms are explained in further detail by Creative Commons, but you should be aware that all Public Content you contribute is available for public copy and redistribution, and all such Public Content must have appropriate attribution. This part has not changed: the purported license is still "CC-BY-SA", and the TOS does not explicitly specify a version. What apparently has changed in the relevant section is one "helpful information" link, which now points to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. So the interesting question arises whether that would constitute an unpermitted post-hoc change in the terms by which SE has license to my older stuff. This matter came up in a reviled Meta question; as I pointed out, the TOS also included a merger clause that This Agreement (including the Privacy Policy), as modified from time to time, constitutes the entire agreement between You, the Network and Stack Exchange with respect to the subject matter hereof. This Agreement replaces all prior or contemporaneous understandings or agreements, written or oral, regarding the subject matter hereof. Because of that, the TOS is self-contained and stuff found on other web pages are not part of the agreement. This in itself is a bit of a problem because you can't both say "we're not bound by stuff outside of this page" and say "the specific terms of the license are outside this page". That particular clause is gone, but there is an analog in the current TOS: These Public Network Terms represent the entire agreement between you and Stack Overflow and supersede all prior or contemporaneous oral or written communications, proposals, and representations with respect to the public Network or Services or Products contemplated hereunder. Furthermore, the TOS contains the following "we can change it" clause: Stack Overflow reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to modify or replace these Public Network Terms, as our business evolves over time and to better provide Services and Products to the Stack Overflow community, or to change, suspend, or discontinue the public Network and/or any Services or Products at any time by posting a notice on the public Network or by sending you notice via e-mail or by another appropriate means of electronic communication. I assume but do not know for a fact that a similar clause existed in prior versions of the TOS. So I conclude that the change is legal.
In general, the output of a program is not copyrighted by the author of the program. When you write a novel in Word, Microsoft doesn't own any copyright in your novel. When you prepare financial statements with Excel, Microsoft doesn't own any copyright in those either. There can be exceptions. Some programs (like GNU Bison, a parser generator) actually do output parts of their own source code, and their source code is copyright to the author. To clarify things, GNU made a statement in the license for Bison that officially says they don't have copyright to what it outputs. You should expect programs of this type to have such an exception, and if they don't, maybe ask the author or don't use them.
The question of whether publishing a document that uses a font is a violation of the copyright of that font depends on the method used for publication, but leaving that aside, in the specific case of the font Times New Roman, the answer is a qualified yes. Times New Roman was one of the fonts included in Microsoft's Core Fonts for the Web package in the late 1990s. This was a package of specific fonts which Microsoft made available for free distribution. The license that was used specifically allowed redistribution of the fonts as long as they remained in their original form and were not sold or bundled for profit. Microsoft discontinued the project a few years later, and newer versions of the fonts are no longer available under the same license, however the original font license remains in effect for the specific versions which were released under it. This version of Times New Roman is quite old and has a limited character set, but it's still usable. As long as you distribute the original font package unchanged with the EULA intact, and do not sell it, you are allowed to distribute an unlimited number of copies of the font.
It's possible that CAD has a separate licence from the authors of ABC that allows them to produce a closed source copy. If not, they have no right to distribute CAD. However two wrongs don't make a right, and so you don't get to violate the copyright of CAD.* Unfortunately, unless you are one of the authors of ABC, you have no standing to sue the authors of CAD. You can only notify the authors of ABC and hope they do. If the authors of ABC don't have the resources to pursue the matter, you may be out of luck. That's one of the reasons the FSF gets copyright assignments for their projects. * It turns out that this is a much more debateable issue than I first thought. Some courts have held that an unauthorized derivative work is not copyrightable.
If the typography is a significant aspect of the overall art of a song title - wherever the song title may be reproduced, i.e. poster, CD cover, etc. - than I'd say that's part of the copyright of the artwork as a whole and not simply the title, and is under copyright. Further, individual type faces can be under copyright themselves. And band names can be trademarked; you will need permission to use the name for products and advertising, since using the name will imply an endorsement from that band.
Yes, it is legal to do that More exactly, it is not copyright infringement. Reverse engineering has been found to be a fair use under US copyright law in: Sega Enterprises v. Accolade 977 F.2d 1510 (9th Cir. 1992); Sony Computer Entertainment v. Connectix 203 F.3d 596 (9th Cir. 2000).; and Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America, Inc. 975 F.2d 832 (Fed. Cir. 1992). In general pure reverse engineering is fair use when the reuser has not agreed to a contract limiting reverse engineering and has not obtained a copy through deception. But a file format is considered to be an idea or a method of operation, and so is not protected by copyright at all, and nothing that is done with it could ever be copyright infringement. See https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/3269d4f3-8b39-4a2c-8205-1a55e0c6774d/are-file-types-copyrighted?forum=Vsexpressvcs and &quot;Does copyright protect data file formats?&quot; from Lexology, the latter citing EU law and the case of SAS Institute Inc. v World Programming Ltd in the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Thus there is no copyright infringement in reverse engineering a file format, or in then writing and distributing code to read, write, or, modify files in such a format. If a valid patent applies, that may prevent creating or using such software without a license from the patent holder. But my understanding is that in most cases a file format will not be subject to a patent.
The words "proprietary format" are important. Are you sure the format is proprietary? If it is, then it's likely protected in which case they might have grounds to sue (but that does not mean they would definetly win). If the format is not proprietary, and so long as you don't share data which is proprietary then I believe you fine. I'm not a lawyer - but I cite GIF files as an example. They were still protected by the US and some other countries until at least the late 90s and there were various threats to open source linux companies who shared code that used the file format. I'm not aware of anything other than threats and never heard of any company being sued, let alone winning or losing. Another example that comes to mind is the RedHat ISO format. My understanding is RedHat could not stop anyone from sharing open source, but they could prevent folks from sharing the format they assembled and shared the open source. Again, I am not sure if it was ever tested in any court of law anywhere.