Can fonts by Dieter Steffmann be sold with added glyphs?

Vasil Stanev
Vasil Stanev Posts: 777
edited May 2018 in Type Business
Hi guys,
Steffman's fonts are the type I would like to add Cyrillic to, and wrote to him about an year ago, but no reply. His site says (I read German) that his eyesight is failing and all his fonts are available for free, but only for private use.

If he can't approve my request because he can't see it, what are my options? The versions I come across the web have very muddy Beziers and I am wondering if there are no cleaner versions around. What is the legal status of these fonts? Cyrillization would be a ton of work - I would like to be able to sell.

Thank you.


Comments

  • Paul Miller
    Paul Miller Posts: 273
    I can not speak for Dieter and I am not speaking for him but in my experience in the past his policy has been to approve his fonts for derivative work ONLY where the derivative work will be available for free and where the author of the derivative work has no intention to make any money from it.

  • Micha Mirck
    Micha Mirck Posts: 23
    I looked at some of his fonts and most of them look like other fonts (See Nougat and Dynamo Bold) 
    I found this link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Dieter_Steffmann_fonts saying; 
    Also, the originals Dieter Steffmann modified before re-licensing were not necessarily public domain as he thought.
    It might be a good idea to check if the font(s) that you want to modify are not known under another name and are protected by copyright and/or trademark
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,431
    Agree with Dan
  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev Posts: 777
    Pretty shady stuff! Better keep my hands off it altogether then.
  • Corey A. Murray
    Corey A. Murray Posts: 6
    Vasil Stanev said:
    Pretty shady stuff! Better keep my hands off it altogether then.
    Yes, I think it might be better to make your own fonts from scratch.
  • Claude Pelletier
    Claude Pelletier Posts: 2

    If you are looking for the name, you will find it here. (Kaiser Gothic)

    https://books.google.ca/books/about/24_Celtic_and_Medieval_Display_Fonts.html

    Celtic and Medieval Alphabets: 53 Complete Fonts

    By: Dan X. Solo

  • Michel Boyer
    Michel Boyer Posts: 120
    A working link: Kaiser Gothic, Dan Solo.
  • Florian Hardwig
    Florian Hardwig Posts: 273
    Solo may have made the first digitization, but the design is older, see Kaiser-Gotisch. Steffmann did little more than renaming Solo’s version. Helzel made another different digitization.


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