Re: Font Names

[Heilan Yvette Grimes <HEP2 -at- AOL -dot- COM>]

>Kelly asked:

>     So what about the weird font names like Zapf Dingbats, TrumpetLite,
>     Thunderbird, etc. (did you know P.T. Barnum has his own font!)
>     Just curious as to who comes up with these names!

>Emily responded:

>As Arlen said, fonts are named by their designers. But if you wonder why you
see
>strange permutations of font names that are somehow similar (Times/Times
>Rmn/Times New Roman, Bookman/Brooklyn, Century/Centurion, Copperplate/Copper
>Pot), it's because of a legal issue.

>Sadly, it seems that type designers can't legally protect a type -design-.
>However, they can trademark the name they give their creation. Therefore,
anyone
>can steal a type design and resell it, but they can't use the name of the
>original typeface. Usually, the cheaters are selling lower-quality versions
(a
>scan of the original, which is not as good as the original).

The above is incorrect. Font designers can legally copyright the font name as
well as the design of the font. The problem arrises when companies like the
design and don't want to pay a licensing fee to use it. They then take the
font, modify it slightly, rename it but let everyone know it is equivalent to
the other and then sell it without paying for the designer. The old
Compugraphics Corporation (now Agfa) was famous for their similar fonts:
Helios/Helvetica, etc. So, when someone says that their font is the same as a
copyright font only with a different name, it just means they have a modified
version and aren't paying the licensing font for the "original" font.

--Yvette