Recently a designer released a font called
Taxi Driver that I immediately recognized used forms of my font, Palm Canyon Drive, seemingly just with shorter ascenders and descenders. Then I realized it actually directly traced forms from two of my typefaces,
Palm Canyon Drive and
Beverly Drive Right. See graphic attached where I overlayed my letters (in green and black) on his (in the rust color). He picked and chose from the two, blending.
- Some forms are clearly traced over as width and form is exact. He has shown this is part of his process before in this instagram reel he made.
- Even the letters that aren't a direct copy (Q and O) still take the overall vibe
- the weighting of the monoline feel exact to Palm Canyone Drive while most of the forms are from Beverly Drive.
- He follows us so it feels unlikely this is just a coincidence.
Do I have grounds to reach out to him and ask him to take down if it blends two things? Or is this a loophole or even totally fine to do?
Screened and multiplied on top so you can see original underneath:
Comments
Did he licence the font from you?
What does your EULA say about copying? (I couldn’t find it on your web site).
If his font uses your metrics (“font data”), that goes beyond plagiarism.
At any rate, certainly, contact him and let him know about the mistake he has made.
Thanks for the advice, Nick.
The current state of copyright for vector fonts in the USA is debated, but the major players in the font biz continue to do business as if they are subject to copyright. But if it involves redrawing over the same shapes, it would not appear to infringe on that possible copyright—any US copyright is strictly on the produced vector outlines.
Nick seems to imply that the metrics are protected or protectible. I believe that is definitely not the case in the USA, and not in most jurisdictions as far as I know. If they were protected, then metrics-compatible fonts would be the subject of actual legal action and not just teeth-gnashing, and the major players would have sued each other over it. Oh wait, they DID, and lost. (When Monotype made metrics-compatible equivalents to the core PostScript fonts, for Microsoft in the early 90s, and ITC and Linotype sued Monotype.)
Design patents are another form of protection in the USA, and definitely apply to the shapes. But people rarely apply for them, they cost money and are of quite limited duration.
@Amy Hood I would be happy to give some in-person (well, phone or video call) thoughts and feedback if you wanted to. I will drop you a note.
The kerning:
I don't think that was done by a human.
Really appreciate all the insights shared here already.
This was released over a decade ago by me: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Fontdiner+Swanky
Shocking only that the character map preview image shows so clearly all he did was a vertical squoosh and some minor tweaks.
I'm writing MyFonts today and will report how they handle it, I also need to look and see where this knucklehead has his knockoff version of my font posted to request its removal
https://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/60950/#Comment_60950
...and then you had essentially nothing to say in response to it.