How to Autotrace to avoid font copyright infringement

Piotr Grochowski

Edited by James Hultquist-Todd. Typedrawers does not support piracy.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

I wouldn't even trace a font already in the public domain.

Piotr Grochowski

Hrant H. Papazian said:

I wouldn't even trace a font already in the public domain.

That's because public domain can already be copied directly. For proprietary fonts or incompatible licensing it is not possible to directly copy without introducing copyright infringement but it can be avoided with Autotrace.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

No I meant tracing is deathly boring.

James Puckett

Piotr Grochowski said:

This method allows type designers to make public domain fonts (or any other licensed fonts) based on the design of any-licensed font, even if they're proprietary.

And this is why my EULA prevents modifications and derivative works.

Christian Thalmann

Admins, what's this messageboard's stance on promoting plagiarism?

Piotr Grochowski

Hrant H. Papazian said:

No I meant tracing is deathly boring.

What? How is that even relevant? Autotrace is not something that makes type designers bored to death. If anything, it might crash and the type designer would restore the crashfile and save and continue. In the end, the outlines are nearly identical, the font is metric compatible and the type designer can proceed to manually fully hint the font (cvt, cvt delta, horizontal/vertical links, interpolates, inline delta, pre-IUP delta, post-IUP delta and such). Would you rather do copyright infringement and most likely not have the hinting source?

Piotr Grochowski

James Puckett said:

Piotr Grochowski said:

This method allows type designers to make public domain fonts (or any other licensed fonts) based on the design of any-licensed font, even if they're proprietary.

And this is why my EULA prevents modifications and derivative works.

I do not recommend making proprietary software. There are countless EULA that do this as well. An Autotraced font does not count as a derivative work as it lacks any recognizable form of the code of the original.

André G. Isaak

Piotr Grochowski said:

An Autotraced font does not count as a derivative work as it lacks any recognizable form of the code of the original.

Legally, this might be true. Ethically, though, it is an entirely different matter.

Simon Cozens

I'm curious as to what you actually hope to achieve by promoting this.

If you want to rip designers off, just point people to unscrupulous Russian download sites. At least it's more honest.

Aaron Bell

Now you're promoting font duplication and theft of intellectual property? Nice. 

Piotr Grochowski

Aaron Bell said:

Now you're promoting font duplication and theft of intellectual property? Nice. 

Most typefaces are not intellectual property, even though there are some that are patented.

Simon Cozens said:

I'm curious as to what you actually hope to achieve by promoting this.

If you want to rip designers off, just point people to unscrupulous Russian download sites. At least it's more honest.

I don't live in Russia and the tools to Autotrace are free software. I hope to achieve free fonts that compete with other fonts.

Jasper de Waard

 I hope to achieve free fonts that compete with other fonts.

I have so many questions I don't know where to begin. Why do you want to achieve free fonts that compete with other fonts? Do you believe it is unjustified that fonts cost money? If they didn't cost money, most of them would not have been made in the first place. Do you disagree? Do you care at all about the ethics behind this?

I do not believe that your intentions are evil, but I truly fail to see the point of this. Care to enlighten me?

Viktor Rubenko

I hope the moderators will remove this topic.

If you want more free fonts, spend your time and money to create them, and then share them in web. What is described here is just theft.

Ray Larabie

Officer, I didn't see a speed limit sign so that means I wasn't speeding. Is it possible to circumvent the EULA by ignoring it?

Piotr has been here for a while and knows that this place is primarily inhabited by people who make their living in type design. To come here and present a tool that circumvents what little protection we have is the dictionary definition of edgelord behavior.

Collins Dictionary
Merriam Webster

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Tracing is ideologically deficient.

The no-mod clause is unethical.

Let's not be anti-Russian (in imitation of certain Western demagogues).

Removing posts is a form of fascism.

Avoiding public confrontation is the purview of manipulators.

Matthijs Herzberg

Moderating an internet forum is the cruelest incarnation of tyranny.

Ray Larabie

@Hrant H. Papazian The boringness of autotraing is worth discussing but perhaps better suited to thread that's not promoting a font piracy tool.

Chris Lozos

autotracing makes shit type

Piotr Grochowski

Ray Larabie said:

Officer, I didn't see a speed limit sign so that means I wasn't speeding. Is it possible to circumvent the EULA by ignoring it?

Piotr has been here for a while and knows that this place is primarily inhabited by people who make their living in type design. To come here and present a tool that circumvents what little protection we have is the dictionary definition of edgelord behavior.

Collins Dictionary
Merriam Webster

So you're even admitting most are commercial type designers. I have no use for a website where most users are not genuinely interested in fontdevelopment but rather are desperately trying to avoid going homeless. I do not have respect over such a community and I permanently quit it.

Ray Larabie

Goodbye.

Aaron Bell

Yes, we are interested in font development. Autotracing fonts in order to duplicate them and put them into public domain is not font development, and goes against the spirit of our craft—even if we were not trying to make a living from it.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Piotr Grochowski said:
I have no use for a website where most users are not genuinely interested in fontdevelopment but rather are desperately trying to avoid going homeless. I do not have respect over such a community and I permanently quit it.

This is exactly as much about you as it is about any other individual: zero.

Paul Miller

Piotr Grochowski why not come up with something new and original.  That's much more fun.

James Hultquist-Todd

Nope.