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A nagging Bitstream copyright question
Posted by Dan Gayle in
23 Apr 2009 — 6:25pm
23 Apr 2009 — 6:25pm
On most a bunch of Bitstream fonts the copyright says this, or similar:
“Copyright 1990 as an unpublished work by Bitstream Inc. All rights reserved. Confidential.”
My question is this: What the heck?
It's obviously published. I have it, so it must be published. Not only that, but this exact statement is the copyright embedded into the Bitstream Charter that was given to the TEX community with an open license. (The Bitstream Vera copyright and license is much more specific.)
Is this their way of trying to control copyright indefinitely, since under American law the creator owns absolute and indefinite rights over any unpublished works? If so, they need to look up the definition of "published".
Any thoughts?
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23 Apr 2009 — 7:29pm
Does give pause.
Michael
23 Apr 2009 — 7:49pm
Evaluation data that escaped into the wild?
23 Apr 2009 — 8:40pm
I’m guessing someone forgot to update the copyright data before releasing the font.
23 Apr 2009 — 9:21pm
that is completely intentional. look up the protections
granted to "unpublished" works and you'll understand.
-bowerbird
23 Apr 2009 — 10:26pm
Please note that the "as an unpublished work by Bitstream" rubbish is only contained in the PS Type 1 versions and not in the TrueType versions of the fonts. If the rubbish note had any meaning, then the TTF fonts would be published and the PS fonts would be unpublished, but I repeat, the note is rubbish and may be ignored.