The font "Helvetica Neue 75 Bold Outline" sold by Adobe is faulty.
More than two dozen glyphs are NOT online, but solid black:
see www.sanskritweb.net/temporary/Helvetica-75-outline.jpg
This is highly interesting, because the seemlingly same outline font sold by Linotype does NOT have these faults.
This means that (at least some of the) seemingly identical fonts sold both by Adobe and Linotype are NOT identical, so that it make a difference from where you get them.
OH NOES!
> OH NOES!
Oh yeah!
I did some digging: Adobe's 1991 outline version was lacking numerous glyphs. Later Adobe inserted bold solid glyphs instead of bold outline glyphs to complement the missing glyphs, whereas Linotype inserted outline glyphs.
The entire font family "Neue Helvetica", publicized in a 1984 Linotype catalog, is now public domain. This includes the outline style too, which also appeared 25 years ago.
@ Uli
It is true, that fonts with the same names, that come from Adobe, Linotype, Monotype and ITC are not necessarily the same.
ITC Galliard Std sold by Adobe, does not contain old style figures, superiors, inferiors and more. ITC Galliard Std sold by ITC does contain these characters.
Except from that there can be big differences in the quality of the hinting, dependent from where you buy the fonts. Linotype does not care as much as Adobe about hinting. The appearance on screen can be big, dependent from where you buy the fonts.
So, if you want to buy a font, that is available from two or more foundries, you have to compare them, although the fonts have exactly the same name.
@ Uli
"The entire font family “Neue Helvetica”, publicized in a 1984 Linotype catalog, is now public domain. This includes the outline style too, which also appeared 25 years ago."
I seriously doubt that is the case.
@ majus
> I seriously doubt that is the case.
If you want to pay 1000 bucks for what is public domain, go ahead!
Read www.linotype.com/1823/neuehelvetica.html
"In 1983, D. Stempel AG redesigned and digitized the "Neue Helvetica™" typeface for Linotype and made it a self-contained font family."
The 25-year protection period elapsed, and Helvetica entered public domain.
Are you trying to tell me that I can have all fonts that are older than 25 years old for free?
> Are you trying to tell me that I can have all fonts that are older than 25 years old for free?
That is correct for all fonts of German foundries, such as the "Neue Helvetica" made by the defunct German Stempel AG in 1984.
"Neue Helvetica" belongs to the 400 additional Linotype fonts which will enter the public domain in 5 days, as of January 1st, 2010. For all the other additional fonts which will fall into PD in a few days, please see the brand-new additional document:
www.sanskritweb.net/forgers/publicdomain2.pdf
For legal details please read the main document:
What if I approach Linotype and ask them, please can I have (for the sake of argument) DIN 1451? Surely they'll tell me to get lost. And doesn't a normal EULA preclude me from sharing a font legally. Are you telling me that an EULA will laspe after a certain amount of time? Will someone explain clearly what this means (or at least what Uli thinks it means) in practice for a font designer?
If Uli is actually correct about this it will be huge boon to the Open Source font movement (assuming they can actually find copies of the original font files). Sure they’ll have to change the trademarked names, but that never stopped anyone. Getting people to design complex families for free is pretty tough, but I doubt they’ll have a hard time getting some people to convert these to bring the old files into Fontforge, expand the character sets to cover the entire range of Latin characters, and generate new OT fonts. Once the procedure is in place a small team could just keep banging them out. It will takes years to get through them all, but it will happen.
Nick Job:
Here is an example of a font design that is NOT YET in public domain, but will fall into PD in a few years:
http://typophile.com/node/65659
Look at the design patent sheet.
Are you trying to tell me that I can have all fonts that are older than 25 years old for free?
That’s one you’ll have to take up with the lawyers. There are going to be a lot of ugly international copyright law overlaps to work out between individual European nations, the EU, and the USA. I suspect that we’ll see safe haven web sites set up in the countries where people have ensured that the fonts are clear for free redistribution until they’re completely public domain everywhere. That’s how this usually works with software/algorithm patents.
I suspect that we’ll see safe haven web sites set up in the countries where people have ensured that the fonts are clear for free redistribution until they’re completely public domain everywhere. That’s how this usually works with software/algorithm patents.
That's similar to how it works on Classical Music Mobile, a website with a banner that states, "Legal Music Only." The site offers MP3s taken from sound recordings that are out of copyright. The files are not free, but the usual price is only €1 per work, regardless of length. The following explanation appears on the website: "Internationally, sound recordings are protected for 50 years from the end of the year in which they were first released (in the USA, the legislation depends on the States). That means, any recording published or released to the public before 1959 is now out of copyright, i.e. in the public domain."
I advocated we should move to a unique ID system that legitimate fonts could register for... I elicited a response from Jonothan Hoefler that seemed to indicate he wasn't game.
> I advocated we should move to a unique ID system that legitimate fonts could register for... I elicited a response from Jonothan Hoefler that seemed to indicate he wasn't game.
The Hoefler & Frere-Jones outfit made a ripoff clone of the public domain font "Clarendon" in the year 2009:
see www.sanskritweb.net/temporary/sentinel-1.jpg
This was legal, because everyone is allowed to rip off public domain fonts.
But the Hoefler & Frere-Jones ripoff outfit was not allowed in the year 2009 to register this "Clarendon" ripoff clone under the font name "Sentinel", because a font with the same font name "Sentinel" is in use since the year 2000/2001 and hence has name priority:
Just for fun, I "created" as a "new" design the inverse ripoff font, for which the "new" font name "Hoefler-Frere-Jones" is registered at the "Ripoff Font Trademark Office".
http://www.sanskritweb.net/temporary/sentinel-3.jpg
The blurb runs as follows:
"Hoefler-Frere-Jones was designed to address the many shortcomings of Typographer Mediengestaltung's Sentinel. Unbound by traditions and by technologies that limit its design, or by ornamental details that restrict its range, Hoefler-Frere-Jones is a fresh take on this useful and lovely Sentinel style. From the Antique style it borrows a program of contrasting thicks and thins, but trades that style’s frumpier mannerisms for more attractive contemporary details. Planned from the outset to flourish in small sizes as well as large, Hoefler-Frere-Jones contains features that make it a dependable choice"
see http://www.typography.com/fonts/font_overview.php?productLineID=100034
Captured from web.archive.org on 13 Jan 2012. view this capture
