:D and I thought Shasta was the one with Tschernobyl mutations.

love the name! love the font! :)

Quel fromage! It looks very much like real cheese melted. I like the holes in them. Brilliant! 10/10

Congratulations! FontStruct Staff have deemed your FontStruction worthy of special mention. “Cheese Fontdue” is now a Top Pick.

makes my mouth water :)~ you have a great talent for envisioning. and you also make each glyph unique within the pattern you create. love the name. mrs p2pnut is a great resource :)

Cool idea, great execution! And this is coming from a Swiss guy who really knows what cheese and fondue are about... :)
@cayo: Dude, this is only cheese... not some kind of nuclear meltdown! ;)

Hi, Ray!

I just noticed Cheese Fontdue at www.abstractfonts.com under your actual name. Your initials, however, are not contained in the font's title. You're probably aware of this already, but if not, I thought I ought to point you there.

Cheers!

--Dan

I don't know what's considered normal when it comes to offering someone's font without the consent or knowledge of the designer. There seems to be a gap between legality and decent manners.

Recently, some of us were thrilled to learn that our work was being showcased at instantshift.com. I admit, however, that my feelings were mixed at first. I agree with you that it would have been lovely to have been asked, or at least notified in advance. In this case, downloading is accomplished from each font's homepage on FontStruct.

The situation at abstractfonts.com is rather different. Even so, if you want them to add your prefix, I encourage you to contact them. I sent such a request when I noticed that instantShift had added some extraneous spaces within my font's name, and they fixed the errors in a single day.

Not long ago, I uploaded a font to dafont.com, and the same mistake occurred. They handled my request the next day as well. So don't be shy, Ray. As you stated, at least this font is being presented as yours, rather than the property of some lowlife.

RM, not sure how you determined your fonts were being used by Summitsoft. did you see them listed or appear as a sample? this is quite disturbing. of course they could have 'redrawn' to avoid the copyright issue i suppose. but with today's technology, it's so easy to steal someone's work. a shame that we are being used by others for their gain and have no recourse to address this issue. a shame.

How do you know that your font is included on the '4000 Fonts' CD? There are very limited samples provided, and no TOC.

I did a Google search with my name (again), and found Edoras Stencil listed on 2 of those 3 websites. Moreover, I found Hommage a Escher font used in a logo design contest, with proper credit give to me (http://oe.cowgar.com/forum/109977.wc#110104 at number 110.) What do you think about that?

@funk_king: What do you mean by 'redrawn' to avoid the copyright issue? It doesn't really matter whether they use pen, paintbrush, chisel, punchcutter, computer, or any other mean, it is still an infringement of copyright. They can not redraw or modify your artwork without your permission.

Actually, frodo7, a font copyright only applies to the unique set of points, lines and curves, i.e. the mathematical formula used to create the outlines. It does not apply to the design of the typeface. Yes, that's right, the design of the type is non-coyprightable. Anyone can scan, print or, in some other way, grab an existing typeface design and if they redraw the shapes, they can rightfully (under current copyright laws) claim that new font as their own. Ethically it may be wrong, but it is completely legal. At least that's my understanding of the issue.

@p2pnut: I have a good news for you. The "4000 Fonts" CD by Summitsoft went on sale on Amazon.com on August 21, 2009. (Co)incidentally, it is the very day you have created RM Cheese Fontdue. Thus, it seems very unlikely that your font made it to that CD, unless they've employed some time machine trick.

It is really sad that some ill intended people take advantages of copyright limitations to redistribute our beloved FontStructions in order to make an easy buck. I have been away from FS for a while, first on behalf of too much work and lately due to family issues, and now that I can finally spend some time in my favorite playground I find out about such an abuse of our beloved "children". I don´t mind the redistribution itself as long proper credit is given, but this is really something worth fighting for.

On a much brighter side I tried to google my name + font as P2pnut did and I came to this nice recopilation of FontStructors which lightened up my day a little bit:
http://cg.scs.carleton.ca/~luc/fontstruct.html

@thalamic: I fondly disagree with your views on this issue. Fonts are visual/pictorial artworks. There is no such provision for fonts in copyright to protect only "the unique set of points, lines and curves, i.e. the mathematical formula used to create the outlines". Copyright protects the whole artwork as long as it exist in any tangible form, in this case printed or digitally stored on a medium.

For a short while I used to work as an editor for a small publisher (a subsidiary company of Vivendi Universal), and I have studied copyright issues, we had to deal with on a daily basis. Just one example: For a new book we wanted to "borrow" some illustrations from another book of a different publisher. To borrow means in that case to completely redraw the graphics by our own hired graphic artist in his/hes slightly different style. We asked for permission, we gave proper credit to the originals' author, but it still wasn't good enough. The other publisher asked for astronomical license fees. Lawsuits were threatened, deadlines were missed as the haggle went on. At the end we had to reduce the number of "borrowed" illustrations to a minimum to stay within the budget.

It is also very illustrative to the current state of intellectual property, and copyright law (guarded largely by the music and motion picture industry) the case of the song entitled: 100 Miles and Runnin' by N.W.A. See the documentary here: GOOD COPY BAD COPY (2007)
http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/

Disclaimer: I'm not a legal expert. These issues are often very complicated. I hope there are smarter people around here on FS, to voice their opinion on copyright matters.

There are many official and unofficial sites to explain copyright issues. Here are some exerpts from http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf

What Is Copyright?

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:

• To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords;

• To prepare derivative works based upon the work;

• To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or
other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

• To display the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and
choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural
works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual
work;

In addition, certain authors of works of visual art have the rights of attribution and integrity as described in section 106A of the 1976 Copyright Act. For further information, see Circular 40, Copyright Registration for Works of the Visual Arts. It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. These rights, however, are not unlimited in
scope. Sections 107 through 121 of the 1976 Copyright Act establish limitations
on these rights. In some cases, these limitations are specified exemptions from copyright liability. One major limitation is the doctrine of “fair use,” which is given a statutory basis in section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act. In other instances, the limitation takes the form of a “compulsory license” under which certain limited uses of copyrighted works are permitted upon payment of specified royalties and compliance with statutory conditions.

As I understand it, Thalamic is correct about US Copyright Law's treatment of fonts. Basically in the US, you can't copyright the design of letters.

However, in the 1990's, Adobe was tired of having their fonts ripped off and sued a distributor of cheap font CDs. The vendor was essentially opening an Adobe font, using software to modify the paths slightly and then renaming it something similar. (I remember Optima became Optimum...)

Adobe won the case by arguing that the fonts were software, and that the code that defined the font was being illegally redistributed per the terms of the license agreement. (Google "Adobe vs. Southern Systems" for details.) They also won some protections for the names of their fonts.

But Thalamic is completely correct when he says - in the US - someone can look at your font and redraw it and be "legal." Recently, there has been discussion about using design patents to protect font designs...

(Note: This all relates to US Law. I'm not sure what protections are available in other countries.)

Sorry for the triple post. Hit the back button and it reposted... Is there any way to delete duplicate posts? If there is, I can't find it.

More info is also at http://www.typeright.org.

@Sketchbook B: It is very exciting to learn more and more about this contentious topic. I have to correct myself: Thalamic may be right, concerning fonts created on US soil. There is no copyright protection for fonts in the USA. But most of the developed world, including Europe and Commonwealth countries do recognise moral and economic rights of design and artworks, including typefaces.

This is what TypeRight.org says (exerpts):

"There are legal foundations to why there should be font copyright — in fact, cases from other fields, and the United States' obligations under international conventions, demand that copyright registration be allowed for type fonts. Most courts in the U.S. will not find any difficulty with these arguments.

1. The US Copyright Office still officially refuses to accord protection for typeface designs. This is due to a misunderstanding of the field, which has resulted in the United States being the only country in the western world not to recognize the intellectual property in typeface designs.

2. Copyright once did protect typefaces (see 1911 Act) but the 1976 Copyright Revision Act changed that.

5. The lack of protection for fonts is anomalous — a photograph or a drawing have the same creative effort as a typeface, and are accorded protection under the act.

Berne Convention

11. It is evident that the United States copyright position is anomalous with the position in other parts of the developed world. The United States has held herself out as a leader in intellectual property when it comes to software, yet neglects typeface design. However, similar creative issues apply.

12. The United States' obligations under the Berne Convention, now that she is a signatory, is to respect the copyright on fonts, if such copyright exists in the countries they were designed in. Fonts designed outside the United States become subject to protection as artistic works. There is little reason for domestically designed fonts to receive a different treatment (nor should they — GATT Articles 1 and 3). "

To the last point: Yes, there is such copyright in my country, therefore the USA, as a signatory of the Berne Convention is to respect that.

Thanks for correcting me Frodo. I am glad I was wrong. :-)

(repeated posts by Sketchbook_B deleted)

One thing to note is that FontStructions are distributed under CreativeCommons licenses, which extend the terms of standard copyright. More information on Wikipedia and on the CreativeCommons website.

Another thing to note is that, while it's good to study and discuss copyright & licenses, they really belong to the domain of lawyers. None of us non-lawyers can make authoritative statements or give legal advice on the matter.

As a sidenote, I encourage FontStructors to create their own blogs to showcase their work to the world outside FontStruct. We have some good examples: Sketchbook_B, Youssef's Type60, TypeRider's Spinsels etc. Behance (like afrojet ) or Flickr are also good alternatives. By publishing his/her own work the creator makes his authorship clear and public, and gets the first results on Google for it.

@thalamic: You were not wrong, and I'm afraid, I was not right. I didn't want to test p2pnut's hospitality with more lengthy discussions on this topic, and placed my answer here: Optill 3B