What is Digg?Warning: The Content in this Article May be Inaccurate
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- Mejogid, on 10/12/2007, -22/+96Although this is a really tragic case, it's not exactly unknown for fonts to be cloned and recloned with slight changes by multiple companies; and 1p per OS copy is a very high price for a product as common place as Windows. Although I feel extremely sorry for this man and his family, Microsoft could hardly have known he was going to get lung disease when they decided to clone it, and the article may just be sensationalist for the point of diggs.
- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -8/+78Indeed. Firstly, if Microsoft did indeed copy the font, this old man has nothing to do with it. The font is owned by Linotype -- a large font company.
Secondly, as the Wikipedia article points out, there ARE noticable differences between Fruitiger and Segoe UI. Moreover, Adobe and Apple have already made Frutiger -clones-, and nobody seems to care about that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segoe_UI
Here's an example of Myriad vs. Frutiger, if anyone wants to see:
http://www.fyrisfonts.com/artiklar/myriad/myriad8.gif
Now compare that to Wikipedia's Segoe UI vs Frutiger.
I know Microsoft is very often evil and dishonest, but it's getting tiring seeing Microsoft being put on the spot for things that other companies do without any trouble. - Supafly, on 10/12/2007, -13/+68"the article may just be sensationalist for the point of diggs"
You think?
The way the headline and synopsis reads, you'd picture the Board of Directors at Microsoft laughing and saying "Exxxxxxxxxxcellent" while planning their next evil deed. - joe90210, on 10/12/2007, -10/+39wow, that has to be one of the most biased, misleading description i've seen in a long time, try reading up on the story in more detail rather that post nonsene like this
- drag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20Under U.S. law typefaces are not copyrightable. So you can copy and duplicate them as much as you feel like. You just can't use anything that has been trademarked.
To 'protect' your typeface you can get a special font patent if you create some sort of new visual aspect or something remarkable about your fonts.. but since creative people have been working on distinctive typefaces since the gutenberg press was invented good luck on that one.
However fonts are copyrightable.. so Microsoft can't just copy a font file. But they can duplicate it, which they did. It's perfectly legal.
It may be in bad taste but you have to realise that majority of font companies such as Linotype Gmb, Adobe, and Bitstream will regularly duplicate and reproduce fonts. It's common practice. In fact Bitstream, which is the probably the largest modern font company, got it's start specificly by duplicating other company's fonts. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+24Food for thought;
If MS were to give him a 100k/year job, that still wouldn't be 1p per windows copy. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+28i have NEVER read a more sensationalist ***** article
- IQ70, on 10/12/2007, -17/+34Fonts are not stolen, they are recycled.
- daldredge, on 10/12/2007, -6/+22Try the apple section.
- artgon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14I hear they eat babies, too.
- LucasVB, on 10/12/2007, -10/+19"and the article may just be sensationalist for the point of diggs."
We're talking about Typophile.com here. These guys are hardcore typography geeks. They couldn't care less about their article getting Dugg, and at most we'll just kill their website.
Also, this is not the first time MS rips someone else's type design, but nowdays there's hardly much serious variation you can get over the characters without getting accused of copying. - PiGuy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Rather than pay a 1 penny per SONG for ARTIST NAME's "SONG TITLE" font, COMPUTER USER chose to clone the DIGITAL SONG instead and call it INFORMATION SHARING.
Anyone on Digg care to explain how this act of stealing a font is different then sharing an mp3 file? Microsoft is not making a (direct) profit off this font, so why is this suddenly so bad? If information wants to be free, why does it matter what format it comes in, whether it be a song or a font? - DoMaGe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Note to self: forget becoming a font artist. The pay sucks.
- soljin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Owning fonts is a backassward way of thinking in this day and age.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Quote from http://www.ms-studio.com/articles.html:
"When Microsoft made TrueType the standard font format for Windows 3.1, they opted to go with Arial rather than Helvetica, probably because it was cheaper and they knew most people wouldn't know (or even care about) the difference. Apple also standardized on TrueType at the same time, but went with Helvetica, not Arial, and paid Linotype's license fee. Of course, Windows 3.1 was a big hit. Thus, Arial is now everywhere, a side effect of Windows' success, born out of the desire to avoid paying license fees."
MS is as evil now as it was back then in the early days! - radiofrequency, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7It's all fun and games until you realize that Microsoft's culture is about stealing from each and every one of us.
Burying this post doesn't make it any less true. - oOLiquidNightOo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6cliff note headline:
a penniless 75 year old man, dying of lung disease is too weak to fight off ghoulish microsoft armies. - ElGuano, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Actually, "copying" a font in this regard is more like reverse-engineering than copying a song off a P2P network, since Microsoft presumably created it "from scratch."
- theone3, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5khyberkitsune - A Freudian Case Study, methinks.
- Septimus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Sensationalist *****.
- triumph, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3When I lived in Switzerland, I attended the Design School in Basel. There I had the privilege of working with Adrian Frutiger. He is such a kind and humble man. He would think that emulation is the most sincere form of flattery. And, btw, Frutiger does not "own" his typeface, he was certainly under contract, so Microsoft would not be "robbing" him anyway.
- Macc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+31 cent per OS?, that's an outrageous amount of money just for a font.
- Sutoka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3He said Microsoft, not Bill Gates.
- freddiefenster, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Public Health Warning:
Don't create fonts it gives you lung disease. - drilldown, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Does the system have to always be on a pay per copy basis, cause based on the response here, it isn't working that well. How about sell rights for $100,000 and if it actually is that worthy, people get paid nicely without all the hassle... Makes me wonder who set up that system of THIS IS THE ONLY WAY FONTS WILL BE PAID FOR. Makes me wonder.
Obviously just one BFC trying to rip-off another BFC and the artist doing the work appears to be a negotiating angle instead of being properly taken care of for his experience in creating something others would like to build on.
Of note, I check the comments section often before the article and I don't think I need to look at the article for this one. Diggers have summed it up very well, and enough to form an opinion on. :-) - EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4You can take a popular song, change it up a bit and record it. There are a million song clones out there (listened to the radio lately?). If you get too close to another song you may be sued, then a court will decide if you've broken any laws.
It's the same thing with fonts, only by their nature the differences between them are less drastic. Where's the confusion? - pksynths, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Yeah but the Bill and Melinda Foundation have NO issues handing over $750,000,000 to the The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization as charity. Get ***** real.
Read up some facts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_&_Melinda_Gates_Foundation
Call Bill Gates a gready bastard and when you do just punch yourself in the face. The man is giving his kids only 10 million in his will when he dies and everything else goes to charity. The true ***** will come out when he dies and the board of members of MS fight that.
Bill Gates has been quoted to saying he dislikes being the richest man in the world so at least he's doing something about it. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -12/+14Yes, it's not sensationalistic, it's okay for Microsoft to steal, duplicate, as long as there's no specific law against what they're doing.
If the person actually dies, that's just bad PR, but it doesn't invalidate their right to screw anyone else as long as it isn't technically illegal, or their lawyers can stall long enough.
(Okay, sarcasm, but I shouldn't need to point it out.) - SuperCujo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Watch out. Using logic against MS haters is bound to get you dugg down....
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'm laughing at all the known MS fanboys here calling the title sensationalist, when the article implies the same thing! You didn't even read the article, did you?
MS cloned the guy's font. Maybe it's legal to do that in the US, but this amounts to MS once against stealing someone else's work or innovation. - tomwb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Adrian Frutiger isn't just some guy hired by Microsoft. He's one of the most well-respected type designers alive today.
The Frutiger typeface was designed for the signage in Charles de Gaulle Airport.
He also designed Univers, one of the most practical sans-serif faces that exists, since it comes in an enormous range of carefully coordinated weights. - LoungeActx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Actually, LinoType licenses Frutiger (the font) from Frutiger. They are the distributors. Frutiger reaps the benefit. Frutiger is one of my favorite fonts, I work with it almost everyday here at work (graphic designer). The price of the font is definitely steep, but that still doesn't give Microsoft the right to rip it off.
- caliform, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Well, masamunecyrus:
"Here's an example of Myriad vs. Frutiger, if anyone wants to see:
http://www.fyrisfonts.com/artiklar/myriad/myriad8.gif
Now compare that to Wikipedia's Segoe UI vs Frutiger"
That comparison, shows a ROMAN PRINT variant referenced against a DISPLAY version of Myriad. The kerning, curves, shapes and x-height of Fruitiger and Myriad are wholly different, but this is only if you reference them against relevant versions. I.e. , Regular Myriad Pro against Regular Fruitiger NEXT. This is just playing wrong. Inaccurate moron, if you were to simply typographically check it out, you wouldn't be so obviously wrong. - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Moreover, Adobe and Apple have already made Frutiger -clones-, and nobody seems to care about that."
They should have their registration of the fonts revoked too. So feel free to bundle them with your apps, or use them in other OSes, next time someone complains that the fonts are copyrighted. - hifigi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3It's not like Frutiger is even THAT dissimilar from Helvetica...grow up.
- ElGuano, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't think many people understand the economies of scale here. A cent per copy of a font, deserved or not, is a lot of money for a product as ubiquitous as Windows. And considering how bloated it is with media, all of that copyrighted material on the CD/DVD - hundreds of fonts, dozens of music tracks, sample photographs, etc., it all eventually adds up, and we haven't even gotten into elements of the core OS yet.
- NapoleonGold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Another example of why copyright laws need to change drastically.
Am I going to have to ask a copyright lawyer to take a dump in the future? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3what amazes me, is the cost pa is less then all the litigation by far.
- gpw11, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6Killer X,
You post virtually the same asinine comment in pretty much every topic you see that has anything to do with Microsoft. Great, we all get it - you're looking for a reaction. Maybe if you did it in a way that was more clever you'd actually get one, but as it is you just end up coming across as a pretentious and misguided child.
Perhaps it's just time to realize that the horse is already dead and you don't need to kick it anymore. - Twango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah, but it's *good* sensationalist *****, Bill!
- porkstacker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Many years ago I heard Massimo Vignelli sum up Microsoft's electronic typeface plagarism tomfoolery quite eloquently:
"There are creators, and then there are masturbators" - oOLiquidNightOo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1.. "only 10 million" ..
how will they ever make do. - ElGuano, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3All that article says is that they went with a cheaper font. What's so evil about being cost-conscious?
- uownedge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Too much finger pointing. In a case like this, it's really hard for MS, because naturally, they are the enemy and everyone wants to point fingers. As was pointed out above, the font is owned by Linotype, so if anyone, they should be going after this. And they probably shouldn't any way. It's a font, and let's face it, fonts suck. There are so many, mostly bad ones, they're hard to manage, and there are a bajillion different formats that make it difficult for design teams to manage cross platform (trust me, I work closely with design teams).
It's easy to point fingers at Microsoft, but I think people are too eager to jump and scream rape. Microsoft is a hell of a company. If they weren't they wouldn't make money like they do. Yes, they have done wrong, and will do more wrong in the future, but the majority of their employees are good, honest people, who ware just making a living. What I don't like, is the majority of Microsofts products. From my personal standpoint, they are low quality compared to other offerings, and suffer from issues (including price and ridiculous licensing) that need attention, but that doesn't make Microsoft a bad corporation alone. I can't stand the PT Cruiser, but does that mean I dislike the Chrysler company? Damn no! They make other cars that are fantastic.
So many of you need to step back and put things into perspective before flying off the handle.
Yes, this situation is sad, but I'd have to say this article is only trying to serve the intent of stirring things up, and that's just no good. - kryogenix, on 10/12/2007, -8/+9Gotta loved the biased title.
- tugger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3So following some of the logic here, it's okay for me to take Windows, change the name to windos and sell it for $15 (a more realistic price for the appalling software OS). Thats not illegal either but the problem would be the army of MS lawyers, not the police..
If this guy was head of a conglomerate, with an aggressive legal team, there would be a settlement by now. This guy is dying, has no money, so MS think he can swing. In that context the headline isn't sensationalist. The MS fans need to calm down a bit. - Ruxton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1copy, tweak, enhance, recycle.. whatever, it happens in every single god damn environment. If it didnt, we'd be alot further behind in alot of areas
- Ruxton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Anyone who think MS is doing something bad here really should read this..
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/22491.html
to sum up, with a quote..
If the effect you're after is a "neutral"-looking sans serif face, based on the proportions and shapes of old-style text typefaces but using stroke weights that don't vary to any noticeable degree, you're bound to end up with something along the lines that Adrian Frutiger first explored fifty years ago. - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1At least Bill Gates hasn't taken up duck hunting yet.
"Sorry, Steve, I didn't mean to shoot you in the face... " - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Some jackass actually thinks a font is worth 0.01% of OS sales? And an even larger percentage of profit? Please.
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