New Foundry Myths #2

[pk...@flnet.com]

What do you really get when you pay $6,000.00 for 1300 "Quality Fonts"
instead of using some of the less expensive, "unlicensed versions"?
Why does a pack of 4-6 fonts have to cost $89.00? There are several
myths in the font game to keep the prices high to the consumer.

MYTH #2 - THERE IS A MORAL OBLIGATION THAT TRANSCENDS ALL CULTURES FOR
ALL TIME TO ALWAYS ALLOW ANY DESIGNER EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO PROFIT FROM
HIS WORK. THIS IS UNALIENABLE - AND NO GOVERNMENT HAS THE MORAL RIGHT
TO TAKE IT AWAY!

Actually, "what you are doing is wrong" is generally the fallback
position for people who are just waking up to the fact that extraction
of font designs is legal! Most people have done little or no research
on the legalities of the font issue, and less than 1 in 100 who have
researched the legal aspects have given serious thought to the moral
aspect of it. It is a serious question and deserving of serious
answers. Realizing that this is new territory for most people, let’s
start off with a few ground rules and definitions.

A statement that something is "wrong" must take it’s basis from
something other than your feelings (or mine). The song, "It can't be
wrong if it feels so right!" is just a song! We can’t make ethical
decisions based on anyone’s feelings - yours or mine. We need to base
standards for people on something bigger than the people involved.

I am going to assume that, for the purposes of this discussion, we all
accept the concept of moral absolutes, (it is possible for a thing to
be always right - or wrong for all people in a given situation)
because if the rightness or wrongness of things changes based on how
you feel, then let’s end the discussion. Anything can be right, given
the proper feelings.

I also assume that we can also concede that truth always harmonizes
with no final conflict. As closely as possible let us quote authors in
COMPLETE context and look to the text for the original intent and
meanings of the authors, letting the chips fall where they may. Let’s
not have any "revisionist history" here.

I would suggest one of 4 bases for a determination of "wrong".

1) The Bible - Divine authority
2) accepted custom - common law authority
3) ordered systems of philosophy
4) Laws - Governmental authority & social contract

If you have another basis for right and wrong that I am not aware of,
please let me (and all the others on comp.fonts) know what it is.

Let’s all decide what morality issues we are debating.

1) We are not deciding here whether a thing can be wrested entirely
from another person. The designer clearly always has access to their
own designs. The issue is merely one of exclusivity - whether a person
has the moral right at all times to exclusively decide the disposition
of a thing he has created, to the point that, if another person
intrudes on that right, even under color of law, they are immoral.

2) Since this issue is raised only because of governmental laws, we
are also not directly deciding whether an individual, by themselves
has the moral right to use another’s design, but whether any
government can morally wrest EXCLUSIVITY away from people who operate
in it’s economic sphere of influence (or are citizens), and
secondarily can the Government then morally transfer that right to use
the designs to a third party.

3) Does the fact that the designer started with massive amounts of
prior art gleaned from civilization and created an admittedly
derivative work have enough moral clout to make a difference here - or
does it have any moral bearing at all?

4) If you want to argue that morality of exclusiveness kicks in only
at a certain level of originality, how much derivation from previous
works is necessary before a font should lack enough originality?

5) Does any government have the moral right to appropriate things that
belong to an individual?

6) Does a governmental declaration of lack of sufficient originality
coming from the designer have any moral bearing, especially when the
same government pointedly protects some works and not others, based on
a consistent set of criteria?

7) Since in an ideal world, civil law and morality would be the same
thing (yes Virginia, you can legislate morality- or at least, morally
legislate.) what deviation from morality is required in a law before
you

* try to change the law?
* break the law (civil disobedience)?
* encourage others to break it?
* try to socially enforce an alternate law which goes directly against
the intent of the legislature?
* attempt to undermine the government setting up the "immoral law"
(sedition)?

8) When a consistent set of laws disallowing design exclusivity are in
place WHICH ARE RECOGNIZED AS WITHIN BOTH LEGAL AND MORAL BOUNDARIES
the People have given to the government, what is the morality of a
company or person who, in defiance of the law and it’s moral
imperitive;

* breaks the law (civil disobedience)?
* encourages others to break it?
* tries to socially enforce an alternate law which goes directly
against the intent of the legislature?
* attempt to undermine the government setting up the "immoral law"
(sedition)?

8) What is the morality of claiming a greater share of the credit in a
font than that you actually contributed?

9) What is the morality of all this abusive and inflammatory language?

SECTION 1 - THE BIBLE - DIVINE AUTHORITY

The reason for the inclusion of this section is the innumerable
questions raised, relating this standard of morality.

The Bible is accepted as inspired by several of the world’s major
religions. According to a public opinion poll in the last decade, it
is also accepted as the Word of God by over 90% of people in the US

This is not a debate over the Bible! You either accept it or you
don’t. If you do turn to it for moral guidance, you should care what
it says on the subject. If you don’t, please move on to the next
section!

I am quoting always from the New International Version in both Old and
New Testaments

There was a time in the Old Testament when God, Himself set up a civil
government and laws for Israel, immediately after they came out of
Egypt. This is probably the clearest take on what God thinks the
extent of civil law over personal property should be.

There seems to be no reference at all directly relating to purely
intellectual property - not hard to understand in a herding and
agrarian society. There was definitely ownership of things. These
things are clearly listed. Stealing things that belonged to another
was morally and civilly wrong. These laws were not simplistic. They
were well developed and complex.

* It was morally and civilly wrong to steal
* You could own (and steal) idols
* You could own (and steal) money
* You could steal people
* You could steal wages. The amount of time you held something
belonging to another was even a determinant of theft.
* You could steal food.
* You could steal personal possessions or household items.
* There could be a debate over ownership of things.
* The people in charge of deciding ownership did not always make the
right decisions.
* It was not always agreed among individuals who owned what.
* Restitution for wrong was the order of the day.
* Taking things from someone without a moral and legal basis is an
implied injustice here.

* This reference is the clearest statement concerning ownership of
intellectual property. You could steal words! Although the these words
were derivative, coming originally from God. It was God, the complete
originator, who had the cause of action against the thieves, not the
speakers, who admittedly framed God’s ideas in their own vernacular.
It does not even imply what cause of action (if any) prophet "A" might
have against prophet "B".
Jer 23:30 "Therefore," declares the LORD, "I am against the prophets
who steal from one another words supposedly from me.

QUESTION
Then if stealing is wrong, how can you find a moral basis for
ethically using something that another worked to make?

ANSWER
The Bible has much more to say about the ownership of things. People
who merely stop here are regarding the Bible as a treasure to plunder
out of context for their own benefit! The Bible is also clear that
there were many things that you did not have exclusive ownership over.
Your wife, in-laws, community, country, or God had a valid claim on a
surprising amount of things. It was not theft for a person having a
partial claim granted by law, to exercise that claim.

* God owned part of everything you earned. You were not the exclusive
owner of your wages. To not "give" this to God was to rob Him.
Mal 3:8 "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, `How do we
rob you?' "In tithes and offerings.

* If you entered into a marriage contract, you could lose exclusive
rights you had over your own body! You could own (or have rights over)
your spouse’s body You had no exclusive rights over your own body if
you were married.
1 Cor 7:4 The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to
her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to
him alone but also to his wife.

* Exclusive rights, which others had all around you, could be denied
to you based on your mere position in a family. You access to some
rights depended on your legal obligations to the inheritance laws of
the country & familial obligations to future generations. You could
have rights over your husband’s brother’s body (and his earning power)
- even if he did not like it. You had no exclusive rights over your
own body or reproductive rights if you had a brother.
Deut 25:5-6 If brothers are living together and one of them dies
without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her
husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of
a brother-in-law to her. 6 The first son she bears shall carry on
the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out
from Israel.

* The community had rights in your field, even though you planted it.
You were required to leave a significant part of your crop for the
direct financial benefit of others - enough to support other families.
You had no exclusive rights over your own crop. This was mandated by
the government, but citizens came directly to your fields and
appropriated what the government said they could have (which
previously you owned, planted, weeded, & cultivated). Gleaning
another’s crop was considered honorable. The most famous example is
the story of Ruth - an ancestor who figured prominently in the lines
of David and Jesus Her story was considered virtuous enough (including
the gleaning) that a book of the Bible is written about her. Her
gleaning activities in no way morally disadvantaged her when she made
a prosperous second marriage. The law was not considered morally wrong
when God commanded this non-exclusive use of personal property.
Lev 19:9-10 "`When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to
the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.
10 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes
that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD
your God.

* Even though God was the author of these words, the king felt he had
the authority to appropriate the document and dispose of it in a way
that the author would not like.
Jer 36:21-26 21 The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and Jehudi
brought it from the room of Elishama the secretary and read it to the
king and all the officials standing beside him. 22 It was the ninth
month and the king was sitting in the winter apartment, with a fire
burning in the firepot in front of him. 23 Whenever Jehudi had read
three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut them off with a
scribe's knife and threw them into the firepot, until the entire
scroll was burned in the fire. 24 The king and all his attendants
who heard all these words showed no fear, nor did they tear their
clothes. 25 Even though Elnathan, Delaiah and Gemariah urged the
king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them. 26
Instead, the king commanded Jerahmeel, a son of the king, Seraiah son
of Azriel and Shelemiah son of Abdeel to arrest Baruch the scribe and
Jeremiah the prophet. But the LORD had hidden them.

* Israelites continually understood their humble beginnings & that
they were obligated to others in previous generations for their
prosperity, whose hard work now benefitted them. The Israelites were
not allowed to consider that it was completely their success, yet they
felt no moral inferority for using something they did not completely
build. They did not feel like they had stolen these things, any more
than the modern nation of Israel feels it has stolen it’s land and
infrastructure today.
Deut 6:10-12 When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore
to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you-- a land
with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled
with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not
dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant-- then when you
eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the
LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

* Real property was not exclusively owned by an individual. It was
owned by your entire line, both before and after you. This
non-exclusivity was enforced by the government. You could do no more
than lease it for a declining period not to exceed 50 years.
Lev 25:10-17 Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty
throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for
you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to
his own clan. 11 The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do
not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended
vines. 12 For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only
what is taken directly from the fields. 13 "`In this Year of Jubilee
everyone is to return to his own property. 14 "`If you sell land to
one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of
each other. 15 You are to buy from your countryman on the basis of
the number of years since the Jubilee. And he is to sell to you on the
basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. 16 When the
years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are
few, you are to decrease the price, because what he is really selling
you is the number of crops. 17 Do not take advantage of each other,
but fear your God. I am the LORD your God.

QUESTION
Does a government have rights over it’s citizen’s property? Can a
government ethically take something from a person that it would be
immoral for one individual to take from another?

ANSWER
* God told the nation, if they took a secular government, the new
government would be able to take property from them that would
otherwise be theirs to keep. Heavy taxation from a government was not
a moral issue that God was prepared to free them from later. There is
not necessarily any immorality in taxation.

Please notice the difference between vs. 14-15 and vs. 16-17. It is
moral for a government to take property through a taxation and give
the benefits directly to a third party. There is no immorality for the
government who does this or for the third party who accepts this
transfer of property.
1 Sam 8:4-20 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came
to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, "You are old, and your sons
do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all
the other nations have." 6 But when they said, "Give us a king to
lead us," this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And
the LORD told him: "Listen to all that the people are saying to you;
it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their
king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of
Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are
doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let
them know what the king who will reign over them will do." 10 Samuel
told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a
king. 11 He said, "This is what the king who will reign over you
will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots
and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he
will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties,
and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others
to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will
take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will
take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give
them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of
your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your
menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys
he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your
flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day
comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and
the LORD will not answer you in that day." 19 But the people refused
to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us. 20
Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and
to go out before us and fight our battles."

* Another clear approval of taxation by governments is in Matthew.
Jews were not allowed to pay Temple taxes with Roman coins that had
images on them ("thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image…")
Some Jews thought that no taxes should be paid to Caesar at all. There
was the trap for Jesus. Say "don’t pay your taxes." and make the Jews
happy - Rome will kill you for sedition. Say, "pay your taxes" and be
seen as Rome’s shill, and no great religious leader. Jesus asked THEM
for a coin. The fact that they were not above having one showed that
they were in Rome’s economic sphere. They acknowledged there was an
image on it. Jesus then declared the rightness of paying taxes to a
government in whose sphere you operated. (Please note, Jews in this
example were neither Romans nor part of the state of Rome, having the
right of "self rule". Thus lies also the argument for non-US citizens
who want to operate in the US sphere of influence to pay any "tax")
The only exception regarded things that were God’s. Civil disobedience
or sedition in this instruction is only justified when a government
tries to appropriate power which should be reserved for God, alone.
Otherwise, shut up, and pay the tax!
Matt 22:15-21 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him
in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the
Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity
and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You
aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are.
17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to
Caesar or not?" 18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You
hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used
for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked
them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" 21
"Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what
is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

QUESTION
Should a government have a say in economic exclusivity?

ANSWER
* There seems to be only one case of economic exclusivity. It
concerned blacksmithing, and interestingly enough, makes a telling
argument for any nation’s needs to have governmental control over
certain items to for their own security. What do you think would have
been the law (passed in about 5 minutes) if there had been only one
blacksmith in all of Israel, but he was a pacifist, who refused to
sharpen swords - or teach others to do it?
1 Sam 13:19-22 Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of
Israel, because the Philistines had said, "Otherwise the Hebrews will
make swords or spears!" 20 So all Israel went down to the
Philistines to have their plowshares, mattocks, axes and sickles
sharpened. 21 The price was two thirds of a shekel for sharpening
plowshares and mattocks, and a third of a shekel for sharpening forks
and axes and for repointing goads. 22 So on the day of the battle
not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in his hand;
only Saul and his son Jonathan had them.

It seems clear to me that theft and robbery are condemned in the
Bible. Private ownership of some things is affirmed. Violation of
these principles is morally wrong. It is also clear that there are
plenty of non-exclusive kinds of ownership that are mandated. If there
was no mandate by God or Government, these things would be wholly
owned by the individual. As it is, the individual was clearly REQUIRED
to give up exclusive rights. The moral right of governments to tax
personal possessions away from the population is clearly affirmed. The
Bible clearly does not support all rights of exclusive ownership. God,
governments, society, relatives, and spouses all have legitimate
claims on a citizen’s possessions in Scripture.

QUESTION
What about people acting like they are giving up their "life’s blood"
when they give up exclusivity of their designs? What about people who
continually couch the argument in terms of "taking the entire font
away from me" when there is only exclusivity taken away? What about
designers who claim creativity and give no credit to others when the
government says their level of creativity is not high enough to
consititute "an original authorship"?

ANSWER
When it comes to the issue of taking no more credit for a font than
that credit actually due you, the story of Ananias and Sapphira comes
to mind. They were good people, property owners. The point is made in
the story that they had the right to control their own property -
exclusively, in this case! They gave to help others, a commendable
thing. Their moral failure came in claiming more credit in the
percentage of their sacrifice for the greater good than was due them.
The penalty was death.

How much work does a designer REALLY put into a font? According to
this story, percentages claimed by a person morally matter! Some font
designers are telling you that it is substantially ALL THEIR EFFORT
AND CREATIVITY they are surrendering to you, based on the law. I say
their position may cast them in the role of moral cripples - as
Ananias and Sapphira!
Acts 5:1-10 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira,
also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife's full knowledge he
kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put
it at the apostles' feet. 3 Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it
that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy
Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for
the land? 4 Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it
was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of
doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God." 5 When
Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all
who heard what had happened. 6 Then the young men came forward,
wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him. 7 About
three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8
Peter asked her, "Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for
the land?" "Yes," she said, "that is the price." 9 Peter said to
her, "How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The
feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will
carry you out also." 10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and
died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her
out and buried her beside her husband.

QUESTION
Well, what about the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have
them do unto you"? Do you really believe that you are following it?

ANSWER
It is true that, after God’s law and the law of the land, you may
develop a standard which you personally hold others to. You are
morally required to hold yourself to the same code.

Yes, I have gone out of my way to encourage people who are more
talented than I to do the same thing I am doing. It is not a trivial
job and there are a lot of components of a font which must be
individually redone. I understand that some people may extract designs
from my fonts. I believe that the young founderies approach the golden
rule with the cleanest hands. Jerry Sapperstein was told that I had
extracted some designs from his fonts. I understand he said, "that’s
OK, It’s legal. Why should I be upset?"

On the other hand, other founderies develop products to let the world
extract font designs and pass them around to any printer (Acrobat),
yet when their designs are extracted, they sue. These founderies talk
about paying living designers and giving them credit, yet many times
this is not so.

SECTION 2 - ACCEPTED CUSTOM - COMMON LAW AUTHORITY

QUESTION
Can a culture which provides no protection to the work of individuals
really be said to be encouraging of creative endeavour, whether it is
completely original or derivative of the works of the past?

ANSWER
That is not the issue here. "no protection" is too strong a term for
what we are discussing here. Many creative or partly creative things
are protected. In the field of type, exclusive protection is not
offered. That is not "no protection". The government has had a hand in
building a free market for over 200 years into what has turned out to
be the greatest market for type in the world. Would you rather have
100% of England’s market for a font, or 25% of the US market for the
same font? Which country then is doing the best job of encouraging
designers??

As you look around at common law and the transfer of ideas for the
last 500 years, especially in the field of type, WHERE GOVERNMENTAL
LAW WAS NOT A CONSIDERATION, solely on the basis of custom, or common
law, royalties were not paid. The very root meaning of the term
"royalty" is that of "a royal right, as over some natural resource,
granted to a person, corporation, etc. - payment of such a right" This
stems from an act of granting from the government, not a matter of
common law. Copyright and Patent Law are clearly an artifact of
government, not of common law.

IN COMMON LAW, things disclosed are useable. If you want to protect
exclusivity, keep it secret. There is no common tradition that when
you learned a better way to do a thing, you should not use that
discovery, except upon payment.

* Hayden’s melodies were taken from the surrounding countryside.
* paper had no royalties paid
* silk - no royalties there, either
* the formula for Coca Cola is kept as a secret - because the method
works best!
* the process for cultured pearls is protected by secrecy
* moveable type, etc.
all protected by secrecy!

QUESTION
Shouldn’t morality should be rather more universal than the
idiosyncratic laws of any one country?

ANSWER
Well, let me ask you then, about design issues that are traditionally
not covered by law;

* Do you pay any royalties to the designer of the style you use if you
write by hand? It is a method of communication that you don’t
absolutely need. It needed to be taught to you. It was learned by
copying from another. You derive much economic benefit from it. The
government has stepped in and mandated that part of your education as
free to all!
* Is there any MORAL difference between copying a "handwriting style"
and a "font for printing purposes" - or in not paying royalties? I
know there are differences. But, in the sense that they are both
creative, expressive, are crafts that can demand hard work, and have
output which is valuable - is there a moral difference?
* Do font DESIGNERS pay royalties to the designers of the fonts they
base their work upon? Do they always even give these people VERBAL
credit?
* Should you pay royalties to your teachers for the knowledge you have
gained from them, and should they pay royalties to the developers of
the concepts they teach?

Morally, I find it very difficult to distinguish between manual,
mechanical and electronic ways to copy a font, directly copying the
letters of an original font to a page v. copying them into some font
software and from that onto the page. If it is morally OK to take
elements of design, doesn’t that relate in any way to the morality of
the digitization?

The differences between current designs of characters based on the
latin alphabet are almost non-existent compared to those that have
been used for centuries. If they were to be protected as original
works of art, almost all would fall into the category of plagiarism or
else be unreadable.

Defining what one can morally claim sole rights for and what is just a
development of your cultural heritage, at best, is not clear cut. Yet,
in this very gray area, march font designers insisting on ridiculous
fees for something which is very arguably 99% the work of the culture
over centuries and 1% the work of the "designer"!

SECTION 3 - ORDERED SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY

A few ground rules here. Anything Dilbert says - doesn’t count! Please
use systems accepted by at least a reasonable number of people in the
world. I‘ll put this section in as a moral basis, but I just don’t get
it! I keep looking for any philosophy that agrees with the necessary
core principles to make font extraction immoral. I ask you;

* What philosophy says the ownership of things (or of creativity - or
ideas) is absolute?
* What philosophy says the ownership of a design can never be
appropriated by a government?
* What moral basis of living (except anarchists) says a government
does not have any moral right to appropriate things from it's citizens
on a non-voluntary basis - even when select citizens may object?

Still, let’s get into a few specifics.

SOCRATES

Socrates and the other Greek philosophers were responsible for much of
the beginnings of Western Government. Socrates never wrote a thing
that we have today. His disciple, Plato, wrote everything we have of
Socrates’ discourses. Plato’s Republic is the basis for most Western
Governments. It spans 12 volumes and is a clearly thought out set of
laws and philosophy regarding every area of running a country for the
benefit of it’s citizens.

There are the usual laws against theft. No mention is made of
intellectual property. Socrates believed that the scholar/warriors
should have no exclusive property while they were in the service of
the country.

* Regarding the morality of a person who would try to take for his own
exclusive advantage, something previously given to the public by the
laws. A citizen who tries to deprive the citizenry of things that are
their right is considered worthy of death. The public good is more
important than private good. Theft from "the public" is more morally
wrong than theft from an individual.

PLATO - REPUBLIC - LAWS BOOK XII
If a man steal anything belonging to the public, whether that which he
steals be much or little, he shall have the same punishment. For he
who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much,
but with less power, and he who takes up a greater amount; not having
deposited it, is wholly unjust. Wherefore the law is not disposed to
inflict a less penalty on the one than on the other because his theft,
is less, but on the ground that the thief may possibly be in one case
still curable, and may in another case be incurable. If any one
convict in a court of law a stranger or a slave of a theft of public
property, let the court determine what punishment he shall suffer, or
what penalty he shall pay, bearing in mind that he is probably not
incurable. But the citizen who has been brought up as our citizens
will have been, if he be found guilty of robbing his country by fraud
or violence, whether he be caught in the act or not, shall be punished
with death; for he is incurable.

* Regarding the morality of a person who deliberately abuses and
insults a man (including, I believe, nuisance suits for the sole
purpose of economic damage before the case can be heard - as opposed
to the judgement of a court) for behaviour that is sanctioned by law,
custom, and morality; It is wrong to go against Public Policy to the
point that you act as an adversary (against the individual, instead
of the state, whose policy you want to change) attacking and harming
an individual who agrees with and upholds the policies of the state.

PLATO - REPUBLIC - LAWS BOOK XII
Every man should regard the friend and enemy of the state as his own
friend and enemy; and if any one makes peace or war with another on
his own account, and without the authority of the state, he, like the
receiver of the exile (harboring an exiled person - p.k.), shall
undergo the penalty of death.

* Here Socrates makes an argument for the government to control the
output of the arts, specifically, the distribution or publication of
one’s work. He makes a claim of the history of other nations. Although
he is quick to point out that not all nations control the arts, the
most successful ones do. He thinks nations should have a right to
regulate things that relate to their art heritage like music, dancing,
and paintings (as fonts certainly do!)

PLATO - REPUBLIC - LAWS BOOK II
Ath. Then in a city which has good laws, or in future ages is to have
them, bearing in mind the instruction and amusement which are given by
music, can we suppose that the poets are to be allowed to teach in the
dance anything which they themselves like, in the way of rhythm, or
melody, or words, to the young children of any well-conditioned
parents? Is the poet to train his choruses as he pleases, without
reference to virtue or vice?

Cle. That is surely quite unreasonable, and is not to be thought of.

Ath. And yet he may do this in almost any state with the exception of
Egypt.

Cle. And what are the laws about music and dancing in Egypt?

Ath. You will wonder when I tell you: Long ago they appear to have
recognized the very principle of which we are now speaking-that their
young citizens must be habituated to forms and strains of virtue.
These they fixed, and exhibited the patterns of them in their temples;
and no painter or artist is allowed to innovate upon them, or to leave
the traditional forms and invent new ones. To this day, no alteration
is allowed either in these arts, or in music at all. And you will find
that their works of art are painted or moulded in the same forms which
they had ten thousand years ago;-this is literally true and no
exaggeration-their ancient paintings and sculptures are not a whit
better or worse than the work of to-day, but are made with just the
same skill.

Cle. How extraordinary!

Ath. I should rather say, How statesmanlike, how worthy of a
legislator! I know that other things in Egypt are not so well. But
what I am telling you about music is true and deserving of
consideration, because showing that a lawgiver may institute melodies
which have a natural truth and correctness without any fear of
failure. To do this, however, must be the work of God, or of a divine
person; in Egypt they have a tradition that their ancient chants which
have been preserved for so many ages are the composition of the
Goddess Isis. And therefore, as I was saying, if a person can only
find in any way the natural melodies, he may confidently embody them
in a fixed and legal form. For the love of novelty which arises out of
pleasure in the new and weariness of the old, has not strength enough
to corrupt the consecrated song and dance, under the plea that they
have become antiquated. At any rate, they are far from being corrupted
in Egypt.

* This short section is about the morality of claming a greater degree
of ownership in a font than you actually have.

PLATO - APOLOGY
When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish
them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if
they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue;
or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, -
then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that
for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something
when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will
have received justice at your hands.

* Socrates was killed for "asking questions" and "corrupting the youth
of his day". He was condemned to death by a jury and ordered to drink
a cup of Hemlock poison. The night before he died, his friend, Crito,
came to him and asked him to flee what was obviously such an unjust
sentence. Crito had made arrangements with a number of other friends
and had a boat waiting. Socrates declined and made an impassioned plea
to follow the government even when it was wrong, because of the good
that the government had done for each of them.

This is central to much of this morality issue. Please read this long
section carefully!

PLATO - CRITO
Soc. Then I will proceed to the next step, which may be put in the
form of a question: Ought a man to do what he admits to be right, or
ought he to betray the right?

Cr. He ought to do what he thinks right.

Soc. But if this is true, what is the application? In leaving the
prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong any? or rather do
I not wrong those whom I ought least to wrong? Do I not desert the
principles which were acknowledged by us to be just? What do you say?

Cr. I cannot tell, Socrates, for I do not know.

Soc. Then consider the matter in this way: Imagine that I am about to
play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like),
and the laws and the government come and interrogate me:"Tell us,
Socrates," they say; "what are you about? are you going by an act of
yours to overturn us- the laws and the whole State, as far as in you
lies? Do you imagine that a State can subsist and not be overthrown,
in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and
overthrown by individuals?" What will be our answer, Crito, to these
and the like words? Anyone, and especially a clever rhetorician, will
have a good deal to urge about the evil of setting aside the law which
requires a sentence to be carried out; and we might reply, "Yes; but
the State has injured us and given an unjust sentence." Suppose I say
that?

Cr. Very good, Socrates.

Soc. "And was that our agreement with you?" the law would say, "or
were you to abide by the sentence of the State?" And if I were to
express astonishment at their saying this, the law would probably add:
"Answer, Socrates, instead of opening your eyes: you are in the habit
of asking and answering questions. Tell us what complaint you have to
make against us which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and
the State? In the first place did we not bring you into existence?
Your father married your mother by our aid and begat you. Say whether
you have any objection to urge against those of us who regulate
marriage?" None, I should reply. "Or against those of us who regulate
the system of nurture and education of children in which you were
trained? Were not the laws, who have the charge of this, right in
commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastic?" Right, I
should reply. "Well, then, since you were brought into the world and
nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the first place that you
are our child and slave, as your fathers were before you? And if this
is true you are not on equal terms with us; nor can you think that you
have a right to do to us what we are doing to you. Would you have any
right to strike or revile or do any other evil to a father or to your
master, if you had one, when you have been struck or reviled by him,
or received some other evil at his hands?- you would not say this? And
because we think right to destroy you, do you think that you have any
right to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in you lies?
And will you, O professor of true virtue, say that you are justified
in this? Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our
country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or
father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the
gods and of men of understanding? also to be soothed, and gently and
reverently entreated when angry, even more than a father, and if not
persuaded, obeyed? And when we are punished by her, whether with
imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence;
and if she leads us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as
is right; neither may anyone yield or retreat or leave his rank, but
whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must
do what his city and his country order him; or he must change their
view of what is just: and if he may do no violence to his father or
mother, much less may he do violence to his country." What answer
shall we make to this, Crito? Do the laws speak truly, or do they not?

Cr. I think that they do.

Soc. Then the laws will say: "Consider, Socrates, if this is true,
that in your present attempt you are going to do us wrong. For, after
having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and
given you and every other citizen a share in every good that we had to
give, we further proclaim and give the right to every Athenian, that
if he does not like us when he has come of age and has seen the ways
of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and
take his goods with him; and none of us laws will forbid him or
interfere with him. Any of you who does not like us and the city, and
who wants to go to a colony or to any other city, may go where he
likes, and take his goods with him. But he who has experience of the
manner in which we order justice and administer the State, and still
remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we
command him. And he who disobeys us is, as we maintain, thrice wrong:
first, because in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents;
secondly, because we are the authors of his education; thirdly,
because he has made an agreement with us that he will duly obey our
commands; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our commands
are wrong; and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the
alternative of obeying or convincing us; that is what we offer and he
does neither. These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were
saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your
intentions; you, above all other Athenians." Suppose I ask, why is
this? they will justly retort upon me that I above all other men have
acknowledged the agreement. "There is clear proof," they will say,
"Socrates, that we and the city were not displeasing to you. Of all
Athenians you have been the most constant resident in the city, which,
as you never leave, you may be supposed to love. For you never went
out of the city either to see the games, except once when you went to
the Isthmus, or to any other place unless when you were on military
service; nor did you travel as other men do. Nor had you any curiosity
to know other States or their laws: your affections did not go beyond
us and our State; we were your especial favorites, and you acquiesced
in our government of you; and this is the State in which you begat
your children, which is a proof of your satisfaction. Moreover, you
might, if you had liked, have fixed the penalty at banishment in the
course of the trial-the State which refuses to let you go now would
have let you go then. But you pretended that you preferred death to
exile, and that you were not grieved at death. And now you have
forgotten these fine sentiments, and pay no respect to us, the laws,
of whom you are the destroyer; and are doing what only a miserable
slave would do, running away and turning your back upon the compacts
and agreements which you made as a citizen. And first of all answer
this very question: Are we right in saying that you agreed to be
governed according to us in deed, and not in word only? Is that true
or not?" How shall we answer that, Crito? Must we not agree?

Cr. There is no help, Socrates.

Soc. Then will they not say: "You, Socrates, are breaking the
covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure, not
in any haste or under any compulsion or deception, but having had
seventy years to think of them, during which time you were at liberty
to leave the city, if we were not to your mind, or if our covenants
appeared to you to be unfair. You had your choice, and might have gone
either to Lacedaemon or Crete, which you often praise for their good
government, or to some other Hellenic or foreign State. Whereas you,
above all other Athenians, seemed to be so fond of the State, or, in
other words, of us her laws (for who would like a State that has no
laws?), that you never stirred out of her: the halt, the blind, the
maimed, were not more stationary in her than you were. And now you run
away and forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take
our advice; do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the
city.

"For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way,
what good will you do, either to yourself or to your friends? That
your friends will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or
will lose their property, is tolerably certain; and you yourself, if
you fly to one of the neighboring cities, as, for example, Thebes or
Megara, both of which are well-governed cities, will come to them as
an enemy, Socrates, and their government will be against you, and all
patriotic citizens will cast an evil eye upon you as a subverter of
the laws, and you will confirm in the minds of the judges the justice
of their own condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter of the
laws is more than likely to be corrupter of the young and foolish
portion of mankind. Will you then flee from well-ordered cities and
virtuous men? and is existence worth having on these terms? Or will
you go to them without shame, and talk to them, Socrates? And what
will you say to them? What you say here about virtue and justice and
institutions and laws being the best things among men? Would that be
decent of you? Surely not. But if you go away from well-governed
States to Crito's friends in Thessaly, where there is great disorder
and license, they will be charmed to have the tale of your escape from
prison, set off with ludicrous particulars of the manner in which you
were wrapped in a goatskin or some other disguise, and metamorphosed
as the fashion of runaways is- that is very likely; but will there be
no one to remind you that in your old age you violated the most sacred
laws from a miserable desire of a little more life? Perhaps not, if
you keep them in a good temper; but if they are out of temper you will
hear many degrading things; you will live, but how?- as the flatterer
of all men, and the servant of all men; and doing what?- eating and
drinking in Thessaly, having gone abroad in order that you may get a
dinner. And where will be your fine sentiments about justice and
virtue then? Say that you wish to live for the sake of your children,
that you may bring them up and educate them- will you take them into
Thessaly and deprive them of Athenian citizenship? Is that the benefit
which you would confer upon them? Or are you under the impression that
they will be better cared for and educated here if you are still
alive, although absent from them; for that your friends will take care
of them? Do you fancy that if you are an inhabitant of Thessaly they
will take care of them, and if you are an inhabitant of the other
world they will not take care of them? Nay; but if they who call
themselves friends are truly friends, they surely will.

"Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of
life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice
first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world
below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or
holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as
Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of
evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth,
returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants
and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom
you ought least to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your
country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our
brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy;
for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen,
then, to us and not to Crito."

This is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears, like the
sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say, is
humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other. And I know
that anything more which you will say will be in vain. Yet speak, if
you have anything to say.

Cr. I have nothing to say, Socrates.

Soc. Then let me follow the intimations of the will of God.

* Socrates was willing to allow the government to appropriate
exclusive use of his life for a trivial reason. He believed that even
a bad government could, for wrong reasons, morally make demands of
this size on it’s citizens. He felt it was immoral to refuse those
demands, unless they could be changed by law.

And because of these things, even though the government is wrong in
this, he said, I will submit, even to the extent of my life, because
to reject the concept of the rule of law is to encourage others to do
the same. This would weaken the government. We accept that no
government is perfect. We must take the whole thing to have a
government at all.

MARXISM/COMMUNISM

Looking at Cuba, China, and Russia, communist governments have never
had a moral problem appropriating personal property for the common
good. Hundreds of millions of people in a significant portion of the
world still operate under some variant of this system today.

Marx believed that personal ownership made a person greedy and the
best solution for the betterment of all was state ownership. The
phrase was coined, "from each according to his ability - to each
according to his need."

SECTION 4 - GOVERNMENTAL LAW

I am covering "Governmental authority" more thoroughly in the other
MYTH postings instead of here. Please do not scan these other MYTHS
too quickly. There are many tangentially related ethical issues raised
there as well.

QUESTION
Does this governmental involvement in the ownership of font designs
and digitizations have any implications in the ethical side of the
question? If the government takes it from you, is that any different
morally than getting mugged in an alley?

ANSWER
YES! Every basis of morality assigns greater rights to a government to
appropriate things from mere citizens, than other citizens have to
take from one another. SSi could not be stealing from the designer
because there is no direct transfer (by theft or any other means)
directly from the designer. The government first appropriates the
designs and perfects the title in itself. I disagree with the charge
of theft, but, at best, (absent the doctrine that Congress can perfect
a title) SSi would be guilty of receiving stolen property from
Congress, not stealing it themselves. (And that would be only in a
world where the government does not have the right to make final
determination regarding title - a world you would not choose to live
in.)

Many people seem to be missing the point. If the actions are moral for
an individual extracting fonts, it is because, Congress has
transferred ownership of the designs AWAY FROM THE DESIGNER. At that
point (of thievery, opponents would say) there are only two parties in
the picture - the designer and Congress. Anyone in the public derives
their title from Congress - not the designer! They take what Congress,
the new owner, freely gives. The concept that the state has the right
to perfect a person’s title according to the concepts of law is, I
believe, universal in governments everywhere.

Duplicating the entire font software file is "software piracy" while
duplicating the font design in another font software envelope with new
routines supporting the design, no matter how precisely you duplicate
it, IS NOT SOFTWARE PIRACY!

Artists must fundamentally be able to make the leap that if a font
design belongs to the government, it no longer belongs to the
designer. Their arguments make sense, and a lot of sense ONLY IF THERE
IS STILL OWNERSHIP VESTED IN THE DESIGNER - which there is not. It's
part of the little social contract we have in America. The laws ARE
the laws until they are changed. All law abiding people agree to
follow them until they are changed - even while we are trying to
change them. You cannot argue they even have a "moral ownership".

The government WANTS all people to have rights to the designs. This is
another thing some people are missing. To declare a "moral right" that
is not universal and is in direct violation of stated governmental
policy and laws must have the strongest of justifications. There is
not that strong justification here. Not enough for sedition, or even
civil disobedience, in my book!

Under Eminent Domain (or Sovereign Rights) The People have taken that
property (of all font designs) for themselves. Anyone who tries to
take those things back for their own exclusive use is doing an immoral
thing!

The government has always taken the right to put the lid on
exclusivity of ownership for ideas. Patents are generally good for 17
years, are they not? Why is that a magic number? No reason! The
government made it up. If you call into question their right to decide
such things and make them stick, you question the fabric of our
economic system! Our social contract (the Constitution) allows
Congress to regulate our commercial dealings with other individuals
(except contracts - section 10, I recall). This means the government
has a right at the most fundamental level to do what many foundries
want to deny them - the right to make font designs non-exclusive. Mind
you, nobody said they HAD to (the law could be changed). The law is
there and we agree to submit to it for the greatest good of the
greatest number.

I will certainly agree there is a moral law that is higher than that
of the government, but not regarding the ownership of many THINGS!

Let us recognize reality for what it is - imperfect. The government
taxes more from most of us than we wish! If you wish to call the
government a thief, then do so! We probably should not use the same
term for everyone who benefits from that taxing through foreign aid,
farm subsidies, education grants, or public transportation.

Still it is (Uncle) Sam's bat and Sam's ball. If I remember the
sandlot rules correctly. The one who owns the bat and ball gets 4
strikes. You don't like it? Go buy your own bat!

To receive governmental protection and the right to engage in
interstate commerce at any level, you agree to give up many of your
absolute rights. You also agree to jurisdiction of the government
concerning property ownership disputes. The people who wrote our
Constitution recognized a trade-off when they saw one If you copyright
any portion of a work, you must surrender 2 copies to the Library of
Congress. You concede 10% for any educational use, whether you approve
of the use or not! You agree for certain "reverse engineering" to take
place, whether you like it or not. In return they will enforce the
rest of your rights (at your expense) which they didn't take away.

Regarding fonts, all they seem to have left the designer is FIRST USE.
The right to be first to market, rather than exclusive use.

QUESTION
Don’t you think that is too much governmental interference? Don’t you
think designers are being asked to give up too much? Even if the
government does take away absolute title to "my" designs, aren’t the
citizens immoral for taking advantage of me, even with governmental
permission (and help)?

ANSWER
Taken to an extreme, a libertarian would say "no taxes, no services.
I'll do it all myself!" If a person has a "no taxes for schools"
stance, but is forced by the government to pay them, is he unethical
for taking advantage of government schooling for his children?

If a person has a "no taxes for fire departments or other social
services" stance, but is forced by the government to pay them, is he
unethical for taking advantage of a fire department if his house is on
fire?
Even if we agree the government does not "legislate morality", it does
legislate ownership in many cases. And, whether that is the way you or
I would do it, in the US, we have a social compact that says we go
along with the rules and try to change them by legal means. If I think
taxes are too high (and I do!), I still pay them. I do not call people
who use what I would call "unneeded public sector services", "thieves"
merely because the government allocated something I used to own, to
them. They are within their rights to apply for and use what is
available to them. I believe this argument applies to fonts as well.

QUESTION
Well, if you DON'T pay for a governmental benefit (like free access to
type designs, for instance), wouldn’t it be unethical to use the
service?

ANSWER
I don't think you really mean that. Every child is immoral then, for
taking advantage of school services for which he paid no tax. You say,
"well, his family paid." No, not in every case. There is a sense we
all must agree that we are all each other's family. I do for you - you
do for me. We take more from the rich. The poor get more services. I'm
not sure that is moral to the extent it is taken, but we definitely do
not and have never had a "pay as you go" plan as in "if you DON'T pay,
it would be unethical to use governmental benefits."

Some servicemen's families would say they should pay less tax because
they paid with their son's life. There are many of coins of payment.
Many things are forfeited immediately to the government upon
completion.

A woman carries a child for 9 months and then struggles through a
birth. No designer could give more or work harder. As soon as the baby
is born, the mother loses the right to kill it that the government
says she had 10 seconds earlier. (not that I agree) She will always be
the mother. The government had nothing to do with the birth. But now,
she does not have exclusive say-so over HER child.

Maybe a more telling argument. Try inventing an encryption scheme. See
if you can do anything you want with your invention! The government
WILL take certain things and appropriate them for their own use, no
matter what you say.

The draft is a good case in point. To an extent, the government owns
YOU and can order you to go places where you can be killed in very bad
ways.

EVERYONE pays their dues to the government in different coins. Still,
if you decide to be a cryptologist, you can expect more governmental
interference and outright confiscation than in another line of work.

Our government owns most things. All land, for instance. they make you
pay "rent" (called a "tax") If you don't pay, they come and take it
away from you. If you resist, they use a gun! If they want to build a
freeway, they take your land for what they call a higher and better
use through eminent domain, and their people decide what it is worth.

That's life in America. On balance, it works better than most places.
Which is why a lot of people stay. These are the very issues that
Socrates discussed. Now they are the basis for our way of life.

QUESTION
Tell us about design protection in India, China, Africa, and the new
Russian states? Even without the US, I've just named "most of the
world". I am not agreeing with the current state of the law in any of
these countries, I just know that most of the rest of the world
doesn't even have Western traditions.

ANSWER
There is no culture that I know of where, either by common law or by
act of government, designers own their designs exclusively and in
perpetuity. All governments, since the days of the medieval period
have changed that towards shorter periods with greater exceptions on
exclusivity - and for the better. All designers have benefited from
this, you included! As soon as you agree that all governments have a
right to a say in the PERIOD of exclusive protection for a design (and
nobody thinks you're crazy enough to argue for a world of no time
standard set by government- or for unlimited protection, in
perpituity), you must agree to submit to the rule of that law.

QUESTION
Isn’t there a major moral difference between an end user extracting
postscript data and reusing as compared to a reseller, extracting and
reselling to many end users?

ANSWER
Not really - legally or morally speaking. End users are just harder to
collect from. "Happy Birthday" is a copyrighted song. If you put it in
a movie, you have to pay royalties on it. That does not mean it is
practical for ASCAP to put a man at each Chucky Cheese Pizza Parlor,
demanding a quarter from every two year old cutting into a cake! The
only difference is in the marketing and collection process - a matter
of scale!

Adobe may have millions of people extracting fonts with their Acrobat
product. They have taught millions to do the very thing they tell the
world that they want to eradicate. When you argue ethics, you need to
argue for absolutes! If it is wrong for one, it's wrong for all! I
don't agree that digital extraction is wrong, but I SURE don't
understand people who are defending Adobe’s Acrobat extraction at the
same time they are attacking foundries who do it on a different scale!

If there are universal rights to digital font data and no valid ways
to extract it at all, then Adobe shouldn't be embedding other
companies’ fonts. If they do, they shouldn't try to grab the moral
high ground and say "we do it on a smaller scale".

Did you ever hear the one about the guy who came up to the beautiful
girl and said, "would you go to bed with me for a million dollars?"
"For a million dollars? Why sure!" she said. "How about 5 bucks?" the
man asked. "Five bucks?" She slapped his face! "What kind of a girl do
you think I am?" she said "We've already determined what kind of a
girl you are!" the man replied. "Now, we're just haggling over the
price!"

Adobe makes (I think) 43 million a year off of this small violation.
(if indeed they are right and digital extraction is wrong) Their
intent is to take over all documents coming off of the web. It looks
like a whole lot of end users to me! "Don't buy fonts, just buy
Acrobat" seems to be a fair understanding of the product.

In my copy of Acrobat Distiller 2.0, you can follow the menu tree
thus;

Distiller
Job Options
General
Make Font Subsets

Please note that "make font subsets" is the DEFAULT!

This means they read the font in and select portions, after which,
they then redo the code (changing pointers at the very least). They
either don't include the metrics (part of the program) or they rework
them so that they are unrecognisable based on a string search.

The font is not "embedded" in a form recognisable as your
copyrightable work unless you save in ASCII format. That means they
"translate" your code into another form. It is insufficient to argue
that there is a bit foundries can flip to make that impossible. In the
first place, most fonts out there are pre-existing to this use, so
their foundry has no say. Most font generation software doesn’t allow
for the bits to be flipped anyway.

Changing another's copyrighted work (in any way) required permission
last time I followed Ted Turner's "colorize all the B&W movies" wars.
Just checking for a font’s permission bit to be set previously by
another foundry is legally insufficient (and indefensible).

Do you realize that Adobe is doing more than just embedding fonts, if
they are extracting the outline path and rewriting the postscript
code? They are then taking the design and making their own shortened
version of the font.

QUESTION
Is there anything morally wrong with calling a font design extractor a
thief, pirate, etc.?

ANSWER
YES! It is an inaccurate attempt to win by inflaming the discussion.

We need to dispense with terms like "stealing", "rip off" and "pirate"
for people doing legal and moral things. We all know that there are
people who directly copy CD's, including packaging, taking absolutely
no time or care for following any law. If people on the web use terms
like this for law-abiding companies that they seem to have major
philosophical disagreements with, what will we ALL have left in the
English language to vent on the people who are not law-abiding?

In the 1950's, elements of the Republican party wanted to make
Eisenhower the Republican nominee for president of the US. It was an
uphill battle based on certain party rules that favored "smoke filled
rooms". He was an underdog! His friends needed a rules change, so they
began lobbying for a "fair play amendment". It was partisan, biased,
and neither "fair" nor "play". But, nobody wanted to be seen as voting
against "fair play" so the rule passed! You know the outcome!

The same point can be made referring to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar,
"for they are all honorable men" (said by Mark Antony, not thinking
Brutus and his men were honorable at all, but to inflame a crowd)
Words can be twisted to gain a bias from a crowd when they are used,
not according to their definition, but simply for emotional leverage.
Let’s stop using words which imply illegal activity and immorality for
the sake of gaining a rhetorical advantage!

People are not things to be manipulated with the "right techniques".
They are not Pavlovian dogs. We do not have a right to set them up to
respond to the "proper" stimuli in order to elicit the "proper"
response. They are not creatures to be used to further our own
economic self-interest. People are sacred! Each of them is an
infinitely precious person in whom the Eternal God has chosen to make
His home. And all of them deserve to be treated with reverent respect.

Too often, in our attempt to get people to buy what we're selling, we
approach them as though they were less than human. Too frequently, we
relate to them as though they were objects instead of subjects. Too
easily, we learn to have with them what the great Jewish philosopher,
Martin Buber, called "I-It" relationships rather than "I-Thou"
relationships. People whom we have dealings with deserve better. They
are entitled to a measure of awe and wonder and even a bit of love.

In his essay " Studies in Words", C. S. Lewis tells us that, "Men
often commit verhicide because they want to snatch a word as a party
banner to appropriate its selling quality." You don't have to
manipulate people if you're doing your research and telling the truth.
So, please don’t call people thieves who are law abiding citizens.
Only biased, untruthful people refuse to make distinctions between
people who;

A) break the law and duplicate another company's disks and packaging

and

B) scrupulously keep the law and the spirit and intent of Congress and
do what the Copyright Office calls a clean reverse engineering,
extracting only the design from a "font program", then rebuilding the
code, kerning pairs, hints, etc., makes a different font program
containing the same uncopyrightable design.

Granted, font designers, because of their economic biases, may not
care for either of these practices (not objecting to (B) on legal
grounds, but because it hurts their business). They should recognize
the moral and legal difference between the two.

The time has come for everybody in this debate to

1) Quote the law accurately

2) Treat law abiding citizens civilly even if you disagree with them.

3) Use words with their normal, reasonable and usual meanings, not
twisting them for your own political (and profitable) ends

4) Make distinction in your language between those who follow the law
and those who don't. Allow plain distinctions between classes of
people who vary in such a fashion that on group is indictable and the
other is not! I know we're into "virtual everything" these days, but
make an effort to recognize the law of the land and not make
comp.fonts a place where normal laws do not apply.

5) Stop belittling other people's painstaking research, when done
accurately. Just answer the issues! The only way to have rational
discussions of inflammatory matters like this is to err on the side of
respect, checking facts before throwing myths or canards up on the
web. Inflame people with Ideas, Truth, Law - not slander!

Paul King - President, Southern Software, Inc. (pk...@flnet.com)
www.ssifonts.com is the best Internet source for all your font
requirements, Mac or PC! We have the only free searchable font
database on the web, cross-referencing 40,000 font names. Download our
Type Directory to look at each font before you buy. 3320 fonts for
$29.95!

[Tiro TypeWorks]

Reverend King,

I have no intention of replying at length to the entirety of your
divers attempts at justification; indeed, I would not reply at all
were it not for the fear that you would take silence (as you have
taken all else) as assent. There is a level of verbosity which denies
all dialogue, and you have greatly exceeded it. Most everything I
intend to say to you I have already said elsewhere. You were invited,
by myself and by others, to offer justification of your actions
independent of your legalism (for still I maintain that is your
preferred hiding place), and to answer the simple question:

How do you justify the direct exploitation of the work of others, to
whom you pay not one cent for the value that their work gives to your
dubious product?

Now you come to us with this immensity of further legal explication of
your position (entirely unasked for) and the fresh immensity of your
Biblical and philosophical ramblings, alternately offensive and
laughable. That you should make such poor use of Holy Scripture and a
seminal work of Western Philosophy -- stretching, shoving and
otherwise abusing their meaning to conform to your legal
interpretations -- seems only new evidence of the narrowness of your
intent. Are you so incapable of understanding anything beyond the
confines of your legalism that you must drag all else within its
scope?

I find your Biblical casuistry deeply offensive, and I feel sorry for
your congregations if this is what they regularly encounter in your
preaching. Plowing through the listings of 'property' in your
concordance hardly constitutes either sound scholarship or theology.
Attempts to impose the cultural morals of early Israelite society on
questions of individual ethical actions in late 20th C. North America
would be amusing, if they were not so abusive of both. That you would
single out one of the most difficult passages of the New Testament
(Acts 5:1-10), and force your obscene imaginative stretches upon it is
bad faith indeed. Far from justifying yourself in any way, you have
probably succeeded only in confirming the poor opinion so many have of
Christianity.

I will render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that
which is God's. The question remains, why should I or any other type
designer have to render anything unto the Reverend King? The coffers
of the state pay for our roads, our schools, our hospitals. God will
repay us infinitely for our sacrifices in this life (first of which is
'a troubled spirit', something you in your self-righteousness show no
sign of). What does the Reverend King give back to those whose work he
appropriates? Nothing. Not even honour or respect to those whose work
he dismisses as unoriginal and insignificant, even as he sneaks his
way to profit from it.

Since you are easily inclined to dismiss 'Do unto others as you would
have done unto you' to some lower rung of morality -- somewhere below
and after 'God's law and the law of the land' -- perhaps you might
rethink this positioning in light of Christ's summary of the law: Love
God, and love your neighbour as yourself. Is it love for your
neighbour to take that which he has laboured over, that which he has
crafted with his love, and sell it to line your own pockets? This _is_
the law of God, as spoken by the prophets and by Christ, not the
collected legislative decisions of the Jewish state (then or now):
Love God, and love your neighbour as yourself. The simplicity of God's
law, so stated, forbids the legalist his customary hiding places.
Where do you stand now, Reverend?

The offensiveness of your theological gymnastics would have cast a
pall over your entire posting, were it not for the humour afforded by
your attempts at philosophy. As you say, 'you just don't get it!'

Your description of Plato's 'Republic' as 'the basis for most Western
Governments' is particularly endearing. You might like to refer to
some of Plato's opinions of democracy, and then rethink this bold
pronouncement. It was so kind of you to include that handy historical
note to remind us that Sokrates didn't write anything, but you are
incorrect in stating that we only know Sokrates through Plato. We
largely know Plato through Plato; Sokrates we might well know better
through Xenephon. I'm particularly fond of the bits where Alcibiades
comes in drunk and tries to get his hand up Sokrates' robe, but
perhaps that isn't included in the Coles Notes version.

Gleanings from the index entries of Plato's 'Republic' and an eight
line dismissal of Marxism hardly constitutes 'a moral basis' in
'ordered systems of philosophy'.

The question that was put to you was an ethical one, so if you insist
on playing at philosophy you might at least try reading some ethics,
rather than a discourse on model government. You could begin with
Aristotle's 'Nichomachaean Ethics'. If you like, I could send you a
reading list, but otherwise expect no further response from me until
you directly and succinctly address this simple, ethical question:

How do you justify the direct exploitation of the work of others, to
whom you pay not one cent for the value that their work gives to your
dubious product?

I'm not terribly interested in what you consider the 'myths' of the
type industry. I am interested in how you can look yourself in the
mirror. I could not, in good conscience, do what you do. Others in
this newsgroup, many with no financial interest at all the type
industry, have suggested that they could not bring themselves to do
what you do. How do you do it?

John Hudson, Type Director

Tiro TypeWorks
Vancouver, BC
ti...@tiro.com
http://www.tiro.com

[Andre G Isaak]

In article <32ea6682...@news.packet.net> Paul King wrote:

[pages and pages of rambling error-ridden cut-and-paste apologetics and
feeble attempts at self-justification in terms of misinterpretations of
the cultural mores of 4th Century BC Attica deleted].

Mr. King,

You, sir, are a complete ass. Please go and find another newsgroup,
preferrably one that I don't read. I recommend alt.test.

I don't mean to be rude (well, actually I do), but reading the same drivel
from you reposted over and over again is making me nauseous.

Andre Isaak

[TypeIndex]

Dear Mr. King.

There is a place for people who profit from the works of others in the way
that you do, it is Hell. You will rot there.

Please leave this newsgroup to the people who actually enjoy type. As you
have stated that you place no value on type, I suggest that you find a
group that is more up your alley. Alt.Satans.servants.in.the.cloth seems
to fit your lifestyle.

CHris
http://users.aol.com/typeindex
The Internet Type Foundry Index
Browse it!

[Jim Cape]

About the post (directly):

1. Hitler quoted the Bible as a justification for trying to exterminate
the Jews ("Jews crucified Jesus, they deserve to be punished, etc.
etc.").

2. If you *really* believe in the bible, honestly pray and ask God if
what you are doing is moral. Ask yourself *honestly* if Jesus would have
done what you are doing if the technology existed.

3. Please answer Mr. Hudson's question:

> How do you justify the direct exploitation of the work of others, to
> whom you pay not one cent for the value that their work gives to your
> dubious product?

About the posts (indirectly):

Sir, please stop posting this spam. What you are doing is either
spamming or trolling. Both of which are not welcome here.

Jim Cape
Graphic Designer
mailto:ca...@ais.net

[Neil Kandalgaonkar]

I know Rev. King is just waiting for people to refute him, but sometimes I
can't resist. The Reverend is a truly odd breed; a profiteer determined to
convince the people whose work he copies that he is doing nothing wrong.

To this end, he's marshalled authoritative support, such as the Bible and
Plato. However, his quotations have dubious relevance; he interprets the
Bible's approval of government taxation as somehow justifying his own
private copying and reselling of fonts. Rev. King, you're no Joseph.

I'm not a Christian, but I do have a healthy respect for the Bible.
Unsurprisingly, there are passages in the Bible that are far more relevant
and contradict King's thesis.

In Exodus (for those unfamiliar with the Bible, think of the movie The Ten
Commandments) God instructs Moses to build some sacred items such as the
Ark of the Covenant. He mentions that some Israelites are artistically and
technically gifted, two in particular:

Exodus 31

1 Then the LORD said to Moses,
2 "See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of
Judah,
3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and
knowledge in all kinds of crafts--
4 to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze,
5 to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of
craftsmanship.
6 Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan,
to help him. Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything
I have commanded you:

However, when Moses gives the order, he doesn't demand that the artisans
work. He urges all to freely donate their time and materials. Note the
"who was willing".

Exodus 35

10 "All who are skilled among you are to come and make everything the LORD has
commanded:
[...]
21 and everyone who was willing and whose heart moved him came and brought an
offering to the LORD for the work on the Tent of Meeting, for all its
service, and for the sacred garments.
22 All who were willing, men and women alike, came and brought gold
jewelry of all kinds: brooches, earrings, rings and ornaments. They all
presented their gold as a wave offering to the LORD.
[...]
30 Then Moses said to the Israelites, "See, the LORD has chosen Bezalel son
of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah,
31 and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and
knowledge in all kinds of crafts--
[...Moses repeats Bezalel's and Oholiab's qualifications, summing up
by calling them "master craftsmen and designers" (verse 35)]

Bezalel and Oholiab are also typographers of a sort; they artistically
inscribe certain messages into the metalwork. Later, their names are
mentioned one more time as the greatness of the achievement is reiterated.

To review: Some Israelites are specially gifted (by God) as designers.
Their contribution was so crucial that the eternal Jewish tradition
mentions them by name several times. Others contributed raw materials, but
their names were not recorded and are obviously less important. Moses
cannot compel the artisans to work on the project. He requests that they
donate their skills.

Implicitly, I believe Exodus is saying that although skills may come from
other sources -- learning and inspiration -- and the raw materials may
come from other sources, * the designer still owns the results of his or
her own original work * !

On to the New Testament. Rev. King is quick to point out that the U.S. has
made some judgments against typeface designers. And therefore it is a
"FACT" that it's okay to copy font designs. Jesus took a rather dim view
of those who conflated law and morality, in the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 5

18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest
letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the
Law until everything is accomplished.
19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others
to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever
practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of
heaven.
20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the
Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the
kingdom of heaven.

Here, the pen-strokes are a metaphor for divine Law, which is more eternal
than the corrupt authority of the Pharisees. But the letters reference is
pleasing, isn't it?

(quotations from the Bible Gateway, http://www.gospelcom.net/bible)
--
Neil Kandalgaonkar CUG web weaver http://cug.concordia.ca/~neil
ne...@cug.concordia.ca Current moon phase: look outside

[erik van blokland]

Considering Mr King needed 29184 bytes to *again* avoid answering the
rather direct question:

> How do you justify the direct exploitation of the work of others, to
> whom you pay not one cent for the value that their work gives to your
> dubious product?

this might be the time to reconsider asking Mr King this question. The
increase in length of his non-answers would pose a certain threat to the
entire internet bandwidth.

[Chillmn]

You should all stop giving the Reverend King such a hard time about the
lengths of his posts. After all, could YOU justify profiteering from the
hard work of other designers with just a few well-chosen words?

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Sun, 26 Jan 1997 07:23:05 GMT, ti...@portal.ca (Tiro TypeWorks)
wrote:

>Reverend King,
>
>I have no intention of replying at length to the entirety of your
>divers attempts at justification; indeed, I would not reply at all
>were it not for the fear that you would take silence (as you have
>taken all else) as assent.

Why John, that is exactly what you said about me in an earlier post,
that I had been "as silent as a grave"!

>There is a level of verbosity which denies
>all dialogue, and you have greatly exceeded it.

John, It is called "exhaustive research"! Much of it is quotes from
accepted authorities. Since you have read so little of this in the
past and hid your head in the sand while attacking any attempt to
answer the hard questions in the industry, I am not surprised that you
are overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the authorities that are
stacked up against you! You have asked repeatedly for a moral
justification. You know there are many bases of morality in our
pluralistic society. It should come as no surprise that it took a few
pages. I hope that the ones who called my slow response "lazy" will
now eat their words and read a few from the experts.

>Most everything I
>intend to say to you I have already said elsewhere. You were invited,
>by myself and by others, to offer justification of your actions
>independent of your legalism (for still I maintain that is your
>preferred hiding place), and to answer the simple question:
>
>How do you justify the direct exploitation of the work of others, to
>whom you pay not one cent for the value that their work gives to your
>dubious product?
>

I wish that there was a minimum IQ standard for response in certain
threads! I spent multiple pages clearly answering that specific
question! My question to you is now, "With all the evidence presented
to show the morality of my actions and the immorality of your claims,
how can you justify continuing in your position?" Please cite
recognized authorities!

>Now you come to us with this immensity of further legal explication of
>your position (entirely unasked for)

Not so! I have been repeatedly asked about these areas, both
privately, on SSi email, as well as on comp.fonts. These are hot areas
of discussion. They are of immense interest to many people who
frequent this forum. Just because you are losing the discussion
doesn't mean nobody wants to hear any more! "If you can't stand the
heat ...."

>and the fresh immensity of your
>Biblical and philosophical ramblings, alternately offensive and
>laughable. That you should make such poor use of Holy Scripture and a
>seminal work of Western Philosophy -- stretching, shoving and
>otherwise abusing their meaning to conform to your legal
>interpretations -- seems only new evidence of the narrowness of your
>intent.

These are merely "ad hominum" arguments, not a real substitute for
addressing the issues like a Big Boy. Try using the sources in context
for a change, John. Do an exhaustive search on every instance of key
words like, "own, steal, theft, property, credit, public use, etc."
you will find out that I was consistently in context and gave the true
meaning of the original authors. You gotta do some fresh, original
research now, John. No more hiding behind that "university education"
while you slam the work of others. You have apologized before for
comments like those in the preceding para. When you come up dry, I
will expect an apology from you. As I said before, you apologize, but
you don't change your ways!

>Are you so incapable of understanding anything beyond the
>confines of your legalism that you must drag all else within its
>scope?

Why do you call it legalism. We are talking ETHICS here, not laws?
Is this an attack on anyone who would try to maintain consistency in
their life? Do you live in a world where you can partition things and
live by different standards? I would remind you that, "a double minded
man is unstable in all his ways."

>I find your Biblical casuistry deeply offensive, and I feel sorry for
>your congregations if this is what they regularly encounter in your
>preaching.

Calling it causistry does not make it so. Those are real cites,
dealing with real issues that have relevance to our topic. John, I am
afraid that you find the TRUTH offensive!

>Plowing through the listings of 'property' in your
>concordance hardly constitutes either sound scholarship or theology.

But bringing together the entire body of ethics as stated in 66 books
on a particular subject is helpful to comp.fonts. It directly answers
questions you have raised. It is much more comprehensive and sound
than you are indicating. You are also not stating any preferred ground
rules for a discussion of these areas. You are just saying "I don't
like the way you did it!" Are you scared to see what these "accepted
moral authorities" have to say? Are you going to continue to insist
that "property ownership is exclusive!" and that "governments have no
right to intervene in their economic sphere of influence!"?

>Attempts to impose the cultural morals of early Israelite society on
>questions of individual ethical actions in late 20th C. North America
>would be amusing, if they were not so abusive of both.

Are you saying that there is no universal morality when it comes to
ownership? An amazing admission, John!

>That you would
>single out one of the most difficult passages of the New Testament
>(Acts 5:1-10), and force your obscene imaginative stretches upon it is
>bad faith indeed. Far from justifying yourself in any way, you have
>probably succeeded only in confirming the poor opinion so many have of
>Christianity.

No Biblical scholar worth his salt would place this passage in the top
100 difficult passages in the Bible. There are clear moral inferences
that Peter (and God) wanted this incident to teach. They are there for
(almost) all to see. Go to 10 good commentaries of your own choosing
that deal with this passage. Do your homework instead of shooting from
the hip. Then come back and tell comp.fonts, "I was wrong!"

>I will render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that
>which is God's. The question remains, why should I or any other type
>designer have to render anything unto the Reverend King?

It would be helpful if you could read (and retain) the posting before
blindly attacking something you obviously don't understand! The
beginning clearly says,

"Let’s all decide what morality issues we are debating.

1) We are not deciding here whether a thing can be wrested entirely
from another person. The designer clearly always has access to their
own designs. The issue is merely one of exclusivity - whether a person
has the moral right at all times to exclusively decide the disposition
of a thing he has created, to the point that, if another person
intrudes on that right, even under color of law, they are immoral.

2) Since this issue is raised only because of governmental laws, we
are also not directly deciding whether an individual, by themselves
has the moral right to use another’s design, but whether any
government can morally wrest EXCLUSIVITY away from people who operate
in it’s economic sphere of influence (or are citizens), and
secondarily can the Government then morally transfer that right to use
the designs to a third party."

The question was clearly answered from several philosophical
perspectives. Wale up and scan the pixels!

>The coffers
>of the state pay for our roads, our schools, our hospitals. God will
>repay us infinitely for our sacrifices in this life (first of which is
>'a troubled spirit', something you in your self-righteousness show no
>sign of). What does the Reverend King give back to those whose work he
>appropriates? Nothing. Not even honour or respect to those whose work
>he dismisses as unoriginal and insignificant, even as he sneaks his
>way to profit from it.

John, you are wrong about everything you wrote in this para! I am not
"self-righteous." I claim I am trying to live by a consistent moral
code. I do not believe I am perfect and have never claimed that i am.
You continue to attack people instead of issues. Does your medication
need adjusted?

I have a database up on our site (ssifonts.com) with credit for each
design that we can attribute to an author. Please do not say we don't
give credit, honour, or respect!

You have stooped to using words like "sneak" when it is clear to all
that I am doing this in the open. You use words for emotional punch,
regardless of their meaning or whether there is any truth in them! You
have been called on this several times on comp.fonts just in the last
60 days. I cannot believe I am debating ethics with a person who takes
the truth so lightly!

>Since you are easily inclined to dismiss 'Do unto others as you would
>have done unto you' to some lower rung of morality -- somewhere below
>and after 'God's law and the law of the land' -- perhaps you might
>rethink this positioning in light of Christ's summary of the law: Love
>God, and love your neighbour as yourself.

Actually, I break it out for the different lesson it has to teach us,
and the different moral imperitave it binds on us. Nowhere do I call
it a "lower standard" You are lying to comp.fonts (and ignoring the
golden rule yourself) when you talk this way. There are enough
assertions in the post for you to deal with whithout you making up
things I did not say.

>Is it love for your
>neighbour to take that which he has laboured over, that which he has
>crafted with his love, and sell it to line your own pockets?

According to the complete standards laid out by several approaches to
ethics, the answer is "YES, if the government appropriates it to the
good of the public!" The question for you is, "Is it moral for you to
attempt to take back as exclusively your own, something the government
has given to the public?" Plato would say your behavior is so
reprehensibli, it is worthy of death!

>
>Your description of Plato's 'Republic' as 'the basis for most Western
>Governments' is particularly endearing. You might like to refer to
>some of Plato's opinions of democracy, and then rethink this bold
>pronouncement. It was so kind of you to include that handy historical
>note to remind us that Sokrates didn't write anything, but you are
>incorrect in stating that we only know Sokrates through Plato. We
>largely know Plato through Plato; Sokrates we might well know better
>through Xenephon. I'm particularly fond of the bits where Alcibiades
>comes in drunk and tries to get his hand up Sokrates' robe, but
>perhaps that isn't included in the Coles Notes version.

Buddy, I read 14 complete "books" of Plato word for word this month to
get that stuff. You have a smart mouth. You don't know what you are
talking about. You belittle the research of others and fail to do any
of your own.

>Gleanings from the index entries of Plato's 'Republic' and an eight
>line dismissal of Marxism hardly constitutes 'a moral basis' in
>'ordered systems of philosophy'.

>The question that was put to you was an ethical one, so if you insist
>on playing at philosophy you might at least try reading some ethics,
>rather than a discourse on model government. You could begin with
>Aristotle's 'Nichomachaean Ethics'. If you like, I could send you a
>reading list, but otherwise expect no further response from me until
>you directly and succinctly address this simple, ethical question:

Post your own research for all to read or get off the thread.

You are personally abusive.

You tell lies about people.

You do not carefully read the postings

You don't know what you are talking about in many instances

>How do you justify the direct exploitation of the work of others, to
>whom you pay not one cent for the value that their work gives to your
>dubious product?

Clearly answered!

>I'm not terribly interested in what you consider the 'myths' of the
>type industry. I am interested in how you can look yourself in the
>mirror. I could not, in good conscience, do what you do. Others in
>this newsgroup, many with no financial interest at all the type
>industry, have suggested that they could not bring themselves to do
>what you do. How do you do it?
>

Clearly answered!

[pk...@flnet.com]

On 26 Jan 1997 11:43:17 -0500, agi...@asimov.oit.umass.edu (Andre G
Isaak) wrote:

>In article <32ea6682...@news.packet.net> Paul King wrote:
>
>[pages and pages of rambling error-ridden cut-and-paste apologetics and
>feeble attempts at self-justification in terms of misinterpretations of
>the cultural mores of 4th Century BC Attica deleted].

Not so!

Prove the errors!

Show the misinterpretation!

That post is accurate, descriptive of the thoughts of the day,
relevant to the questions asked on comp.fonts. It is also the most
complete body of research posted to date on the ethics of this issue.

>Mr. King,
>
>You, sir, are a complete ass. Please go and find another newsgroup,
>preferrably one that I don't read. I recommend alt.test.
>
>I don't mean to be rude (well, actually I do), but reading the same drivel
>from you reposted over and over again is making me nauseous.
>

You sir, ARE rude, and uncivilized. You can leave if you want to hide
your head in the sand. Your insults are not an intelligent response.

[pk...@flnet.com]

On 26 Jan 1997 17:36:23 GMT, type...@aol.com (TypeIndex) wrote:

>Dear Mr. King.
>
>There is a place for people who profit from the works of others in the way
>that you do, it is Hell. You will rot there.
>
>Please leave this newsgroup to the people who actually enjoy type. As you
>have stated that you place no value on type, I suggest that you find a
>group that is more up your alley. Alt.Satans.servants.in.the.cloth seems
>to fit your lifestyle.
>

Your comments are about on the level we have come to expect, Chris! I
DO place a value on type. I do not believe it is wholly original or
the exclusive property of the designer in the USA. I see you have no
reasonable rebuttal to the serious questions raised.

[pk...@flnet.com]

I have clearly stated my position in this area many times using short
posts. )These guys on the other side refused to answer the arguments
raised in the short posts too, come to think of it) I have been
repeatedly asked to provide a moral and philosophical basis for what I
do. Each time, these Philistines punctuated their request for more
info with rude insults and offensive behaviour. I have responded. Let
them respond to the issues only (for a change), if they can!

[W Marshall]

Tiro TypeWorks <ti...@portal.ca> writes:

>Reverend King,
>
>I have no intention of replying at length to the entirety of your
>divers attempts at justification; indeed, I would not reply at all

No reply would have been preferable to your noxious whining
and self-serving drivel.

When will you understand the key wisdom that letterforms
are not legally protected? This is the good that serves
society with the free flow of information and ideas, without
interminable legal impediment over trivial designs in serifs.

If you don't like the situation, and you are not in a position
to become a totalitarian ruler of your own private country,
maybe you should find a new line of work.

W. Marshall
tired of this stupid font protection crab-assing

[pk...@flnet.com]

On 26 Jan 1997 22:27:37 GMT, ne...@domingo.concordia.ca (Neil
Kandalgaonkar) wrote:

>To this end, he's marshalled authoritative support, such as the Bible and
>Plato. However, his quotations have dubious relevance; he interprets the
>Bible's approval of government taxation as somehow justifying his own
>private copying and reselling of fonts. Rev. King, you're no Joseph.

Neil, As I clearly wrote,

"Let’s all decide what morality issues we are debating.

1) We are not deciding here whether a thing can be wrested entirely
from another person. The designer clearly always has access to their
own designs. The issue is merely one of exclusivity - whether a person
has the moral right at all times to exclusively decide the disposition
of a thing he has created, to the point that, if another person
intrudes on that right, even under color of law, they are immoral.

2) Since this issue is raised only because of governmental laws, we
are also not directly deciding whether an individual, by themselves
has the moral right to use another’s design, but whether any
government can morally wrest EXCLUSIVITY away from people who operate
in it’s economic sphere of influence (or are citizens), and
secondarily can the Government then morally transfer that right to use
the designs to a third party."

>I'm not a Christian, but I do have a healthy respect for the Bible.

>Unsurprisingly, there are passages in the Bible that are far more relevant
>and contradict King's thesis.
>
>In Exodus (for those unfamiliar with the Bible, think of the movie The Ten
>Commandments) God instructs Moses to build some sacred items such as the
>Ark of the Covenant. He mentions that some Israelites are artistically and
>technically gifted, two in particular:
>

>Exodus 31:1-6
>
(snip)
>
>Exodus 35:10, 21-22, 30-31
>
(snip)

>
>Bezalel and Oholiab are also typographers of a sort; they artistically
>inscribe certain messages into the metalwork. Later, their names are
>mentioned one more time as the greatness of the achievement is reiterated.
>
>To review: Some Israelites are specially gifted (by God) as designers.
>Their contribution was so crucial that the eternal Jewish tradition
>mentions them by name several times. Others contributed raw materials, but
>their names were not recorded and are obviously less important. Moses
>cannot compel the artisans to work on the project. He requests that they
>donate their skills.
>
>Implicitly, I believe Exodus is saying that although skills may come from
>other sources -- learning and inspiration -- and the raw materials may
>come from other sources, * the designer still owns the results of his or
>her own original work * !

Neil, just because the front room of a house is red, you cannot infer
that all the other rooms are red! This is a clear case of artisans
willingly giving their gifts to God (the original source of the gifts)
It does not rule out the authority of the government to insist on a
transfer of property from an individual. Your argument is as silly as
saying that because there is proof that people in our time gave
willingly to help the poor through their churches, the government has
no authority to tax you to do the same thing! Bad logic!

A case of artisans willingly giving their gifts to God is not "far
more relevant" than cases that talk about who may morally own certain
property (the issue at hand). Your cites don't "contradict King's
thesis" because they don't deal with whether the government can
morally COMPEL a person to relinquish exclusivity.

>On to the New Testament. Rev. King is quick to point out that the U.S. has
>made some judgments against typeface designers. And therefore it is a
>"FACT" that it's okay to copy font designs.

WHAT??? "Judgements against typeface designers"? Congress made
specific laws. The Copyright Office made regulations after listening
to ANYBODY WHO WANTED TO BE HEARD. None of these arguments were
rationally advanced in either case! The court case ELTRA v. RINGER
reaffirmed it as the law of the land. Font Designs are
uncopyrightable! They are effectively in the public domain! If the
government has the moral and legal right to do this, IT IS OKAY!

>Jesus took a rather dim view
>of those who conflated law and morality, in the Sermon on the Mount:
>

>Matthew 5:18-20
>
(snip)

>
>Here, the pen-strokes are a metaphor for divine Law, which is more eternal
>than the corrupt authority of the Pharisees. But the letters reference is
>pleasing, isn't it?

If it pleases you to use Scripture out of context, I suppose so. Jesus
is referring to divine law. There is never any basis for using the
Text any way other than the original author intended.

[Jim Cape]

W Marshall wrote:

>
> Tiro TypeWorks <ti...@portal.ca> writes:
>
> >Reverend King,
> >
> >I have no intention of replying at length to the entirety of your
> >divers attempts at justification; indeed, I would not reply at all
>

> No reply would have been preferable to your noxious whining
> and self-serving drivel.

What do you call this message?

> When will you understand the key wisdom that letterforms
> are not legally protected? This is the good that serves
> society with the free flow of information and ideas, without
> interminable legal impediment over trivial designs in serifs.

How are your ideas and information impeded because you have to use Times
New Roman TT instead of Minion MM? What exactly do you do for a living?

> If you don't like the situation, and you are not in a position
> to become a totalitarian ruler of your own private country,
> maybe you should find a new line of work.

Failure to like something does not mean that you need to find a "new
line of work". I don't particularly like the fact that PhotoShop 4 costs
mucho dinero. I don't decide to abandon graphic design because of it.

> W. Marshall
> tired of this stupid font protection crab-assing

To quote you, "if you don't like the 'crab-a__ing', and you are not it a
position to become a totalitarian ruler..."

[Tiro TypeWorks]

Let's get one thing totally clear, right off the bat. This is NOT a
discussion about the right of government to appropriation, despite the
Reverend King's attempts to make it so to suit his purposes. This is a
discussion about one man's actions, his profiteering from the work of
others, and how he lives with himself.

The Reverend has been repeatedly challenged by people who can clearly
see the difference between law and morality, people who think it is
wrong to profit from someone else's work regardless of what the law
says or whose property the state determines that work to be. The
state, in time of war, legalises the act of killing. Does this mean
that killing is no longer a sin?

The Reverend has striven, in his immense posts, to drag these
questions back into the realm of law, where he feels more comfortable.
This is why I continue to call him a legalist, one who will not
distinguish law and ethics and will favour the former, even to excuse
that which is legitimately, ethically questioned.

pk...@flnet.com wrote:

>On Sun, 26 Jan 1997 07:23:05 GMT, ti...@portal.ca (Tiro TypeWorks)
>wrote:

>>Reverend King,
>>
>>I have no intention of replying at length to the entirety of your
>>divers attempts at justification; indeed, I would not reply at all
>>were it not for the fear that you would take silence (as you have
>>taken all else) as assent.

>Why John, that is exactly what you said about me in an earlier post,
>that I had been "as silent as a grave"!

And the silence was golden.

>>There is a level of verbosity which denies
>>all dialogue, and you have greatly exceeded it.

>John, It is called "exhaustive research"! Much of it is quotes from
>accepted authorities. Since you have read so little of this in the
>past and hid your head in the sand while attacking any attempt to
>answer the hard questions in the industry, I am not surprised that you
>are overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the authorities that are
>stacked up against you! You have asked repeatedly for a moral
>justification. You know there are many bases of morality in our
>pluralistic society. It should come as no surprise that it took a few
>pages. I hope that the ones who called my slow response "lazy" will
>now eat their words and read a few from the experts.

There is a difference, both quantitative and qualitative, between
extensive research and simply posting every quote you could find,
however remotely connected to the issue at hand, and claiming direct
relevance for it. This is simply a barrage of deafening noise, with
which I believe you hope to throw your opponents into confusion -- the
dialectic equivalent of the bagpipes. I maintain that, in all your
philosophical wanderings, you have not once distilled your 'research'
into a cohesive moral position, _independent_ of your interpretation
of the law. That's all I'm looking for, a single, straight forward
paragraph in which you answer my question in the simple terms in which
it is asked. Do as much or as little research as you want, I just want
to know where you stand. If you want to say 'I justify myself by
refusing to acknowledge any distinction between law and morality -- as
long as the law says I can do it, I will believe it to be ethical', go
ahead.

>>Most everything I
>>intend to say to you I have already said elsewhere. You were invited,
>>by myself and by others, to offer justification of your actions
>>independent of your legalism (for still I maintain that is your
>>preferred hiding place), and to answer the simple question:
>>
>>How do you justify the direct exploitation of the work of others, to
>>whom you pay not one cent for the value that their work gives to your
>>dubious product?
>>

>I wish that there was a minimum IQ standard for response in certain
>threads! I spent multiple pages clearly answering that specific
>question! My question to you is now, "With all the evidence presented
>to show the morality of my actions and the immorality of your claims,
>how can you justify continuing in your position?" Please cite
>recognized authorities!

Let's begin with the authority of Reason. Anyone who knows me
personally will tell you that I am open to reason. If you can persuade
me, by reason, that you are right, I am not adverse to changing my
position. So far, you have failed to persuade me. I do not see
anything in your latest messages, despite their claims to offer
'ethical' justification, that in any way differs from the arguments
from law which you posted two months ago. You have simply attempt to
dress the latter in terms of the Bible, Plato, etc., and in doing so,
I maintain, you have abused your 'authorities'.

You were asked, by many people, how you justify yourself ethically.
This question has a context: the distinction of law and ethics. If, as
I begin to suspect, you do not believe in such a distinction, just say
so.

>>Now you come to us with this immensity of further legal explication of
>>your position (entirely unasked for)

>Not so! I have been repeatedly asked about these areas, both
>privately, on SSi email, as well as on comp.fonts. These are hot areas
>of discussion. They are of immense interest to many people who
>frequent this forum. Just because you are losing the discussion
>doesn't mean nobody wants to hear any more! "If you can't stand the
>heat ...."

Your 'myths' were framed as your promised 'ethica' response to our
questions. I had to wade through the entirety of the first 'myth'
before I realised that there was little new in it over your previous
legal justifications. The only substantially new content is your
apparent willingness to challenge patent protection. I look forward to
this particular spectacle, as I understand it will cost you
approximately $1,600 per patent to file an interference.

>>and the fresh immensity of your
>>Biblical and philosophical ramblings, alternately offensive and
>>laughable. That you should make such poor use of Holy Scripture and a
>>seminal work of Western Philosophy -- stretching, shoving and
>>otherwise abusing their meaning to conform to your legal
>>interpretations -- seems only new evidence of the narrowness of your
>>intent.

>These are merely "ad hominum" arguments, not a real substitute for
>addressing the issues like a Big Boy. Try using the sources in context
>for a change, John. Do an exhaustive search on every instance of key
>words like, "own, steal, theft, property, credit, public use, etc."
>you will find out that I was consistently in context and gave the true
>meaning of the original authors. You gotta do some fresh, original
>research now, John. No more hiding behind that "university education"
>while you slam the work of others. You have apologized before for
>comments like those in the preceding para. When you come up dry, I
>will expect an apology from you. As I said before, you apologize, but
>you don't change your ways!

Hardly even 'ad hominum' (sic) arguments. I was simply stating my
personal distaste at your methodology. I do find your approach
offensive, and I do believe that you grubby both the discussion and
your sources when you try to reduce the Bible and Plato to the level
of your legalism. Doubtless, you do not perceive your methods in this
way. I do, and from the other responses to your posts, it seems that
others do also.

>>Are you so incapable of understanding anything beyond the
>>confines of your legalism that you must drag all else within its
>>scope?

>Why do you call it legalism. We are talking ETHICS here, not laws?
>Is this an attack on anyone who would try to maintain consistency in
>their life? Do you live in a world where you can partition things and
>live by different standards? I would remind you that, "a double minded
>man is unstable in all his ways."

Reverend King, you wouldn't know an ETHIC if it stood up and slapped
you. If you want to 'maintain consistency' in your life by always
following the letter of the law while ignoring the ethical questions
surrounding it, feel free. Most of us acknowledge that the world is
full of double standards -- between ethics and law, for example, or
between rich and poor, between those who work for a living and those
who derive wealth from capital -- and we try to live ethically in this
minefield. The question, in ethics, is not whether we are consistent,
but whether we are doing what is right. You have, for the sake of
consistency, chosen to equate doing what is right with following the
law. You have been challenged by people who do not believe that the
law is always right. You have responded by reducing their challenge to
a question of definitions of property, and have so attemped to drag
the argument back into the legal sphere. The argument will not be
dragged. We want to know how you, as an individual, can live with
yourself knowing that you profit from the work of others, to whom you
pay no compensation?

Speaking of compensation, since you are so keen on arguing the
government's right to appropriation, please cite the articles of US
law which says that your government has the right to appropriate
_without compensation_. Your government has been carrying on a trade
embargo against Cuba for some forty years, largely based on the fact
that Castro's regime appropriated land from the Cuban upperclass
without compensation. In Britain, Canada and Germany -- just to name a
few -- the government's right of appropriation is tied to fair
compensation. I believe this is also true of the USA.

As I've said before. If your government wants to appropriate all type
designs and give them to the people, let the government pay for
domestic typeface development. If they want to make foreign type
available to the American people, let them pay to import it. Then let
them give all types away for free download from a governent website. I
still maintain there is a difference between the government's
appropriation of a piece of land, paying fair compensation to the
original owner, and the arbitrary decision that a particular piece of
land has not been and cannot be owned. There is also a difference
between the government establishing a park on land it has appropriated
with compensation, and someone sitting down in what is obviously
someone's carefully cultivated front garden and proclaiming that it is
a public picnic site. The law may indeed say that it is a public
picnic site, but what kind of person are you to trample on flowers
that have been planted, watered and cared for by another human being?

>>I find your Biblical casuistry deeply offensive, and I feel sorry for
>>your congregations if this is what they regularly encounter in your
>>preaching.

>Calling it causistry does not make it so. Those are real cites,
>dealing with real issues that have relevance to our topic. John, I am
>afraid that you find the TRUTH offensive!

I fail to see how an Old Testament teaching on the 'property rights'
of spouses to each other's body has 'relevance to our topic'. I find
your grubby casuistry on the body of holy matrimony offensive.

>>Plowing through the listings of 'property' in your
>>concordance hardly constitutes either sound scholarship or theology.

>But bringing together the entire body of ethics as stated in 66 books
>on a particular subject is helpful to comp.fonts. It directly answers
>questions you have raised. It is much more comprehensive and sound
>than you are indicating. You are also not stating any preferred ground
>rules for a discussion of these areas. You are just saying "I don't
>like the way you did it!" Are you scared to see what these "accepted
>moral authorities" have to say? Are you going to continue to insist
>that "property ownership is exclusive!" and that "governments have no
>right to intervene in their economic sphere of influence!"?

I have not argued that 'governments have no right to intervene in
their economic sphere of influence', and I take your quotation marks
-- clearly meant to suggest that I said this -- as an act of pure
defamation. This, after all, is your method, to put words in the
mouths of your opponents, to fill your posts with carefully tailored
questions from the straw men you wish you were facing.

QUESTION
Why does the Reverend King pose so many questions to himself?

ANSWER
Because he doesn't want to have to answer the questions that others
ask him.

>>Attempts to impose the cultural morals of early Israelite society on
>>questions of individual ethical actions in late 20th C. North America
>>would be amusing, if they were not so abusive of both.

>Are you saying that there is no universal morality when it comes to
>ownership? An amazing admission, John!

I am saying that your Biblical citations, for the most part, record
the legislative decisions of the early Jewish state. The laws of any
nation, because they are the laws of man, are removed, to a greater or
lesser degree, from moral absolutes. Are you claiming that the laws of
the ancient Israelites dod not suffer this distinction? You will
probably respond that the laws of the early Israelites were handed
down direct from God. They were still, however, laws for man, and took
into account man's weakness, his fallen state, his propensity for sin.
If it was possible to rectify the Fall by act of legislation, would
Christ's death have been necessary? I am not saying that there is no
universal morality when it comes to ownership. I am saying that there
is no universal legality when it comes to ownership, and that to claim
morality from one set of laws, however divinely inspired, is false.
Perhaps you also think it moral to kill homosexuals, according to
ancient Jewish law, or to keep slaves.

>>That you would
>>single out one of the most difficult passages of the New Testament
>>(Acts 5:1-10), and force your obscene imaginative stretches upon it is
>>bad faith indeed. Far from justifying yourself in any way, you have
>>probably succeeded only in confirming the poor opinion so many have of
>>Christianity.

>No Biblical scholar worth his salt would place this passage in the top
>100 difficult passages in the Bible. There are clear moral inferences
>that Peter (and God) wanted this incident to teach. They are there for
>(almost) all to see. Go to 10 good commentaries of your own choosing
>that deal with this passage. Do your homework instead of shooting from
>the hip. Then come back and tell comp.fonts, "I was wrong!"

I would say that any passage of any book in which someone dies is a
difficult passage. You, however, seem to find some perverse thrill in
the notion of people dying for their sins, or what you perceive as
their sins. I begin to wonder if you are not, simply, a very sick
individual.

>>I will render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that
>>which is God's. The question remains, why should I or any other type
>>designer have to render anything unto the Reverend King?

>It would be helpful if you could read (and retain) the posting before
>blindly attacking something you obviously don't understand! The
>beginning clearly says,

>"Let’s all decide what morality issues we are debating.

Please see the top of this post. I'm not interested in what morality
issues you _think_ we are debating. I am interested in an answer to
the question I asked.

>1) We are not deciding here whether a thing can be wrested entirely
>from another person. The designer clearly always has access to their
>own designs. The issue is merely one of exclusivity - whether a person
>has the moral right at all times to exclusively decide the disposition
>of a thing he has created, to the point that, if another person
>intrudes on that right, even under color of law, they are immoral.

>2) Since this issue is raised only because of governmental laws, we
>are also not directly deciding whether an individual, by themselves
>has the moral right to use another’s design, but whether any
>government can morally wrest EXCLUSIVITY away from people who operate
>in it’s economic sphere of influence (or are citizens), and
>secondarily can the Government then morally transfer that right to use
>the designs to a third party."

No, we are not debating this. We are debating whether you, Paul King,
in this very particular instance, are behaving ethically, not whether
you, Paul King, can think up hypothetical, philosophical or Biblical
instances which might sufficiently vary the circumstances to let you
get away with it.

>The question was clearly answered from several philosophical
>perspectives. Wale up and scan the pixels!

You have answered your own questions, but that can hardly have been
difficult (although it did take you weeks of reading and a _lot_ of
words). Now that you've got that out of your system, perhaps you'd
like to answer the rest of us.

>>The coffers
>>of the state pay for our roads, our schools, our hospitals. God will
>>repay us infinitely for our sacrifices in this life (first of which is
>>'a troubled spirit', something you in your self-righteousness show no
>>sign of). What does the Reverend King give back to those whose work he
>>appropriates? Nothing. Not even honour or respect to those whose work
>>he dismisses as unoriginal and insignificant, even as he sneaks his
>>way to profit from it.

>John, you are wrong about everything you wrote in this para! I am not
>"self-righteous." I claim I am trying to live by a consistent moral
>code. I do not believe I am perfect and have never claimed that i am.
>You continue to attack people instead of issues. Does your medication
>need adjusted?

Wrong in everything that I wrote? The coffers of the state do no pay
for our roads? They don't pay for our schools or hospitals? God isn't
going to repay us infinitely in Heaven for our sacrifices in this
life? The Reverend King is actually compensating the designers whose
work he is profiting from? The cheques in the mail?

>I have a database up on our site (ssifonts.com) with credit for each
>design that we can attribute to an author. Please do not say we don't
>give credit, honour, or respect!

You database has been commented on before now, and you have simply
chosen to ignore the criticisms. Your database simply lets your
customers know whose designs have been renamed as what. Do you really
think Robert Slimbach likes that fact that you have taken a typeface
he personally named Minion, changed the name to something totally
meaningless, and are selling it without offering him any compensation.
Honour? Respect? Clearly these are words that no dictionary is going
to help you understand. Your database is simply the insult you add to
your injury.

>You have stooped to using words like "sneak" when it is clear to all
>that I am doing this in the open. You use words for emotional punch,
>regardless of their meaning or whether there is any truth in them! You
>have been called on this several times on comp.fonts just in the last
>60 days. I cannot believe I am debating ethics with a person who takes
>the truth so lightly!

A sneak in the open moves as a sneak in the dark. The only difference
is that, in the open, more people can see how oddly he gambols with
his hunched shoulders, shifty eyes and grasping fingers. I cannot
believe I am debating anything with such a creature.

>>Since you are easily inclined to dismiss 'Do unto others as you would
>>have done unto you' to some lower rung of morality -- somewhere below
>>and after 'God's law and the law of the land' -- perhaps you might
>>rethink this positioning in light of Christ's summary of the law: Love
>>God, and love your neighbour as yourself.

>Actually, I break it out for the different lesson it has to teach us,
>and the different moral imperitave it binds on us. Nowhere do I call
>it a "lower standard" You are lying to comp.fonts (and ignoring the
>golden rule yourself) when you talk this way. There are enough
>assertions in the post for you to deal with whithout you making up
>things I did not say.

How dare you accuse me of lying, yet again! You said 'after God’s law

and the law of the land, you may develop a standard which you

personally hold others to'. '_AFTER_', implying a secondary status, a
lower standard. If this is not what you meant, you should be more
careful in your wording.

>>Is it love for your
>>neighbour to take that which he has laboured over, that which he has
>>crafted with his love, and sell it to line your own pockets?

>According to the complete standards laid out by several approaches to
>ethics, the answer is "YES, if the government appropriates it to the
>good of the public!" The question for you is, "Is it moral for you to
>attempt to take back as exclusively your own, something the government
>has given to the public?" Plato would say your behavior is so
>reprehensibli, it is worthy of death!

Once again, the government has no right to appropriate anything 'for
the good of the public' without fair compensation to the original
owner or creator. Any government that assumes such powers is
tyrannical. I also decline to equate 'for the good of the public' with
'for the good of the Reverend King's bank account'.

>>Your description of Plato's 'Republic' as 'the basis for most Western
>>Governments' is particularly endearing. You might like to refer to
>>some of Plato's opinions of democracy, and then rethink this bold
>>pronouncement. It was so kind of you to include that handy historical
>>note to remind us that Sokrates didn't write anything, but you are
>>incorrect in stating that we only know Sokrates through Plato. We
>>largely know Plato through Plato; Sokrates we might well know better
>>through Xenephon. I'm particularly fond of the bits where Alcibiades
>>comes in drunk and tries to get his hand up Sokrates' robe, but
>>perhaps that isn't included in the Coles Notes version.

>Buddy, I read 14 complete "books" of Plato word for word this month to
>get that stuff. You have a smart mouth. You don't know what you are
>talking about. You belittle the research of others and fail to do any
>of your own.

After 14 books, one hopes you might have realised that the 'Republic'
is a dialogue on model government, NOT a treatise on ethics. I take
your failure in this regard as further evidence of your inability to
distinguish morality and legislation.

>>Gleanings from the index entries of Plato's 'Republic' and an eight
>>line dismissal of Marxism hardly constitutes 'a moral basis' in
>>'ordered systems of philosophy'.

>>The question that was put to you was an ethical one, so if you insist
>>on playing at philosophy you might at least try reading some ethics,
>>rather than a discourse on model government. You could begin with
>>Aristotle's 'Nichomachaean Ethics'. If you like, I could send you a
>>reading list, but otherwise expect no further response from me until
>>you directly and succinctly address this simple, ethical question:

>Post your own research for all to read or get off the thread.

Is that a request for the reading list on ethics?

>You are personally abusive.

Likewise.

>You tell lies about people.

So you keep saying. If I have 'lied' about you, it is only insofar as
you have misrepresented yourself through sloppy use of language.

>You do not carefully read the postings

Unfortunately for my time and my patience, I waded through the
entirety of your megaposts.

>You don't know what you are talking about in many instances

No, you don't know what I'm talking about in many instances.

>>How do you justify the direct exploitation of the work of others, to
>>whom you pay not one cent for the value that their work gives to your
>>dubious product?

>Clearly answered!

Not answered at all. Clearly dodged, ducked and avoided. I have
attempted, in this message, to explicate what I mean by the question,
in the hopes that this will make it easier for you to comprehend.

>>I'm not terribly interested in what you consider the 'myths' of the
>>type industry. I am interested in how you can look yourself in the
>>mirror. I could not, in good conscience, do what you do. Others in
>>this newsgroup, many with no financial interest at all the type
>>industry, have suggested that they could not bring themselves to do
>>what you do. How do you do it?

>Clearly answered!

Well, insofar as you have demonstrated a total inability to even
discern a question of ethics independent of a question of law, yes, I
suppose you have answered this question. You do it by refusing to let
your conscience be troubled by it, a pathology for which there are
clinical terms (and treatments).

[David Marshall]

In a post, pk...@flnet.com wrote:

Wow! 24,000 words of opinionated, badly informed, legally-twisting
drivel. If he has the time to write this kind of thing it's no wonder
his company produces such poor copies of some excellent typefaces.

I'd love to see your arguments die in court in a country with more
informed copyright laws - Britian for example.

> Paul King - President, Southern Software, Inc. (pk...@flnet.com)
> www.ssifonts.com is the best Internet source for all your font
> requirements, Mac or PC! We have the only free searchable font
> database on the web, cross-referencing 40,000 font names. Download our
> Type Directory to look at each font before you buy. 3320 fonts for
> $29.95!

I'd like to see a trademark lawyer's opinion of his font database.
Copying someone else's carefully crafted designs is clearly wrong,
but creating very bad copies and then selling them as having an
"industry name of" or being "similar to" the source design is morally
repugnant.

If your opinion of intellectual property is so low, we can only assume
you've never created anything worth protecting. The software industry
would be so much better without you Mr King.

A type user
Dave
--
http://www.aestiva.demon.co.uk/

[Christopher Fynn]

"Rev." King

Your twisted interpretation of Christian and Biblical doctrine
and your use of the Bible to justify your stealing the fruits
of other peoples's labour is nauseating.

As far as I'm concerned your so-called "Christian ethics"
stink. Using the Bible to justify your parasitical deeds is
just about as low as you can get. People used to justify
slavery and apartheid like this too - but it didn't make them
right.

- Chris

--
Christopher J Fynn <cf...@sahaja.demon.co.uk>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Mon, 27 Jan 1997 23:49:18 GMT, ti...@portal.ca (Tiro TypeWorks)
wrote:

>Let's get one thing totally clear, right off the bat. This is NOT a

>discussion about the right of government to appropriation, despite the
>Reverend King's attempts to make it so to suit his purposes. This is a
>discussion about one man's actions, his profiteering from the work of
>others, and how he lives with himself.

John, you're as wrong as can be. The government plays a pivotal role
in this. Else why would you maintain it is different in other
countries? Change one element to fix the situation for you , what
would it be? Governmental Policy! My rights are derived from them and
they defend my rights. This is not about ME (no matter how much you
like to take the low road and keep the discussion in the gutter) it is
about Copyright Law! It is about what is moral to do in the US with
fonts. It concerns other people only as it affects how THEY should
live.

>The Reverend has been repeatedly challenged by people who can clearly
>see the difference between law and morality, people who think it is
>wrong to profit from someone else's work regardless of what the law
>says or whose property the state determines that work to be. The
>state, in time of war, legalises the act of killing. Does this mean
>that killing is no longer a sin?

You take such a simplistic view of everything. Some killing IS NOT a
sin! "Thou shalt not kill" is followed immediately in later chapters
with several conditions where killing is ordered. It does not mean
"don't kill animals, be a vegetarian" or "don't kill wheat plants"!
All truth must harmonize with other truth. You insist that single
phrases must stand on their own and never be modified by other
passages, even in the face of the context and common sense.

>The Reverend has striven, in his immense posts, to drag these
>questions back into the realm of law, where he feels more comfortable.
>This is why I continue to call him a legalist, one who will not
>distinguish law and ethics and will favour the former, even to excuse
>that which is legitimately, ethically questioned.

I am questioning your ethics, under the standards of the last 2500
years. You are trying to retain exclusive rights to designs that are
taken from you by a legitimate government. I say it is immoral to do
so! Philosophy and religion are on my side. Defend yourself using
research and accepted authorities instead of sliding by with name
calling.

>
>There is a difference, both quantitative and qualitative, between
>extensive research and simply posting every quote you could find,
>however remotely connected to the issue at hand, and claiming direct
>relevance for it. This is simply a barrage of deafening noise, with
>which I believe you hope to throw your opponents into confusion -- the
>dialectic equivalent of the bagpipes. I maintain that, in all your
>philosophical wanderings, you have not once distilled your 'research'
>into a cohesive moral position, _independent_ of your interpretation
>of the law. That's all I'm looking for, a single, straight forward
>paragraph in which you answer my question in the simple terms in which
>it is asked. Do as much or as little research as you want, I just want
>to know where you stand. If you want to say 'I justify myself by
>refusing to acknowledge any distinction between law and morality -- as
>long as the law says I can do it, I will believe it to be ethical', go
>ahead.

There is no dialectic in Greek logic. Perhaps you have mixed up your
Plato and your Marx. You know I did not simply post "every quote I
could find". I prefaced each one with a reasonable take on it's
relevance to the issue. I noticed you have refused to discuss a one!
You are running from the meat of the discussion, John.

>
>Let's begin with the authority of Reason. Anyone who knows me
>personally will tell you that I am open to reason. If you can persuade
>me, by reason, that you are right, I am not adverse to changing my
>position. So far, you have failed to persuade me. I do not see
>anything in your latest messages, despite their claims to offer
>'ethical' justification, that in any way differs from the arguments
>from law which you posted two months ago. You have simply attempt to
>dress the latter in terms of the Bible, Plato, etc., and in doing so,
>I maintain, you have abused your 'authorities'.

Prove it! You saying "abuse" doesn't make it so. You are using
demagogery instead of the reason you praise so loudly. Show that;

*these things I have referred to were not so
*they were not truly representative of the situation
*they are not an adequate moral basis

If you cannot, then be quiet. Sit down. Shut up, and let others who
will address the issues speak up. You want to criticise my form and
research, yet we have seen precious little research and plenty of bad
form from you!

>You were asked, by many people, how you justify yourself ethically.
>This question has a context: the distinction of law and ethics. If, as
>I begin to suspect, you do not believe in such a distinction, just say
>so.
>

I posted 2 (out of 8 Myths that I have ready) at the same time because
of the clear distinction that I have made in the first two between Law
and Ethics. Everybody else can see that is what I have done. What is
the matter with you?

>Your 'myths' were framed as your promised 'ethica' response to our
>questions. I had to wade through the entirety of the first 'myth'
>before I realised that there was little new in it over your previous
>legal justifications. The only substantially new content is your
>apparent willingness to challenge patent protection. I look forward to
>this particular spectacle, as I understand it will cost you
>approximately $1,600 per patent to file an interference.
>

There is enough substance in these "myths" to shake up your entire
world!

These patents are being challenged in the context of the current
lawsuit. You gravely underestimate the cost to challenge them.

(here, snip all the "personal attacks in lieu of any discussion on the
merits")

>The question, in ethics, is not whether we are consistent,
>but whether we are doing what is right. You have, for the sake of
>consistency, chosen to equate doing what is right with following the
>law. You have been challenged by people who do not believe that the
>law is always right. You have responded by reducing their challenge to
>a question of definitions of property, and have so attemped to drag
>the argument back into the legal sphere. The argument will not be
>dragged.

You must accept SOMETHING as an authority other than yourself, John,
surely! What it is that you will accept, I can't tell! Most people
accept that title derived from the government is good - even moral.
Othes will accept the words of God (the Bible) when He tells us how to
live - regarding each other's property are a basis for moral dealings
with others and their property. Some accept an intellectual ideal and
philosophy of relationships as did Plato. None of these will satisfy
you, will they? Questions of property do NOT have to be dragged back
in the legal sphere. But, any sane view of the world must recognize
that governments exist and that we must deal with them! You have an
obligation to show us your view of the world and how it relates to
reality. You have to show the basis of a morality to follow when the
Law is NOT right. You have not done that. Plato did! Moses did! I
quoted them. You can't deal with their arguments - so you won't!

>Speaking of compensation, since you are so keen on arguing the
>government's right to appropriation, please cite the articles of US
>law which says that your government has the right to appropriate
>_without compensation_. Your government has been carrying on a trade
>embargo against Cuba for some forty years, largely based on the fact
>that Castro's regime appropriated land from the Cuban upperclass
>without compensation. In Britain, Canada and Germany -- just to name a
>few -- the government's right of appropriation is tied to fair
>compensation. I believe this is also true of the USA.

I'm talking fonts here. (This is comp.fonts for all of you that have
lost track.) Castro is too far afield for me when you refuse to deal
with ANY of the 67 major points I have raised. John, go start your own
Castro thread! This one concerns Copyright and moral issues I have
raised. Not Castro! Not personalities!

>As I've said before. If your government wants to appropriate all type
>designs and give them to the people, let the government pay for
>domestic typeface development. If they want to make foreign type
>available to the American people, let them pay to import it. Then let
>them give all types away for free download from a governent website. I
>still maintain there is a difference between the government's
>appropriation of a piece of land, paying fair compensation to the
>original owner, and the arbitrary decision that a particular piece of
>land has not been and cannot be owned. There is also a difference
>between the government establishing a park on land it has appropriated
>with compensation, and someone sitting down in what is obviously
>someone's carefully cultivated front garden and proclaiming that it is
>a public picnic site. The law may indeed say that it is a public
>picnic site, but what kind of person are you to trample on flowers
>that have been planted, watered and cared for by another human being?

In Myths #1, I clearly dealt with these legal issues. This is the
"moral" myth John. Do you remember slamming me for not making the
distinction? Do you remember slamming me for going over old ground? Do
you remember slamming me for dwelling on the law when the question was
ethics? I will accept your appology any time.

>I fail to see how an Old Testament teaching on the 'property rights'
>of spouses to each other's body has 'relevance to our topic'. I find
>your grubby casuistry on the body of holy matrimony offensive.

FYI, 1 Corinthians is in the NEW Testament. This scripture was
included to show that the conventional morality of today in marriage
of "I own my own body" was so immoral when the Church was started. It
was understood that fewer things belonged to you exclusively than
people like you assume today.

Your outrageous lie about "grubby causistry" aside, in the early
church, your body was your own until you entered into a marriage
relationship. At that time, you lost exclusive rights to your own body
- by universal marriage contract before God. Today, we have a social
contract - with our government. The relationship is not so hard to
understand. This precise thing is what Samuel warned the Israelites
they would be entering into if they formed a secular government.

>I have not argued that 'governments have no right to intervene in
>their economic sphere of influence', and I take your quotation marks
>-- clearly meant to suggest that I said this -- as an act of pure
>defamation. This, after all, is your method, to put words in the
>mouths of your opponents, to fill your posts with carefully tailored
>questions from the straw men you wish you were facing.

Then John, please state clearly for the record;

Do you believe that governments have no right to intervene in property
matters in their economic sphere of influence?

>QUESTION
>Why does the Reverend King pose so many questions to himself?
>
>ANSWER
>Because he doesn't want to have to answer the questions that others
>ask him.

These questions were pulled from other questions I have been asked on
the web in the last 60 days. The FAQ is an accepted Internet way of
bringing people up to speed on questions that are asked over and over.

I have seen others posted from time to time on comp.fonts with no
objection.

>I am saying that your Biblical citations, for the most part, record
>the legislative decisions of the early Jewish state. The laws of any
>nation, because they are the laws of man, are removed, to a greater or
>lesser degree, from moral absolutes. Are you claiming that the laws of
>the ancient Israelites dod not suffer this distinction?

Yes! I will not debate it with you in a font forum. You either believe
it or you don't. It is the official position of Israel and of most
believers in Classic Christianity. This is Orthodox stuff here, John!

>You will
>probably respond that the laws of the early Israelites were handed
>down direct from God. They were still, however, laws for man, and took
>into account man's weakness, his fallen state, his propensity for sin.

The same state that we have today! I ask you again; Do you believe
that these moral laws laid down by God are absolutes or not? Are God's
rules about exclusivity of property, and governmental reach in that
time an accptable basis of morality now? Yes or no?

>If it was possible to rectify the Fall by act of legislation, would
>Christ's death have been necessary? I am not saying that there is no
>universal morality when it comes to ownership. I am saying that there
>is no universal legality when it comes to ownership, and that to claim
>morality from one set of laws, however divinely inspired, is false.

You are right! Which is why the US has the right to pass their own
laws on the subject. Passing Copyright Laws like this keeps them under
the umbrella of the allowable limits God placed on nations. They are
not usurping the place of God by doing so!

>I would say that any passage of any book in which someone dies is a
>difficult passage.

Please admit to the crowd that you are using a unique "John Hudson
standard" for difficult passages again rather than ANY respected
source. Whew! For a minute there, we thought you had done some actual
research, read the view of an authority, or taken someone's standard
other than your own!

>You, however, seem to find some perverse thrill in
>the notion of people dying for their sins, or what you perceive as
>their sins. I begin to wonder if you are not, simply, a very sick
>individual.

Please stop attacking me personally in such an unadmirable fashion!
You do not know what thrills me, perverse or otherwise. John, you have
gone way past the limits of decency!

>>>I will render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that
>>>which is God's. The question remains, why should I or any other type
>>>designer have to render anything unto the Reverend King?

You simply will not accept the MAIN POINT! You don't render a thing to
me! You are compelled to give it to the government. After that, what
happens to it is none of your business! This principle is clearly
stated by Samuel.

>>1) We are not deciding here whether a thing can be wrested entirely
>>from another person. The designer clearly always has access to their
>>own designs. The issue is merely one of exclusivity - whether a person
>>has the moral right at all times to exclusively decide the disposition
>>of a thing he has created, to the point that, if another person
>>intrudes on that right, even under color of law, they are immoral.
>
>>2) Since this issue is raised only because of governmental laws, we
>>are also not directly deciding whether an individual, by themselves
>>has the moral right to use another’s design, but whether any
>>government can morally wrest EXCLUSIVITY away from people who operate
>>in it’s economic sphere of influence (or are citizens), and
>>secondarily can the Government then morally transfer that right to use
>>the designs to a third party."
>
>No, we are not debating this. We are debating whether you, Paul King,
>in this very particular instance, are behaving ethically, not whether
>you, Paul King, can think up hypothetical, philosophical or Biblical
>instances which might sufficiently vary the circumstances to let you
>get away with it.

Go get your own thread buddy, this is the heart of this one. You know
this is not about individuals. There are not enough people who care
about "Paul King" in the world to fill the a medium size Mall. The
reason this is such a burning issue on comp.fonts is because IT
MATTERS TO THE REST OF THE WORLD WHAT THE ETHICS OF THE CURRENT FONT
SITUATION IS.

You want to keep it focused on me because

A) you have an anger problem and you like to trash other people
personally.

B) you won't do your research and therefore must steer away from the
issues

C) you know you can't win on the merits and are doing all this to
discourage any others who might say "Emperor Hudson has no clothes!"

D) you need a target for your venom

E) All of the above!

This thread WILL stay on the issue! Too many people care about this
for you to be allowed to derail it!

>You database has been commented on before now, and you have simply
>chosen to ignore the criticisms.

It has also been complimented, but we can hardly expect you to be fair
about that, can we?

>Your database simply lets your
>customers know whose designs have been renamed as what. Do you really
>think Robert Slimbach likes that fact that you have taken a typeface
>he personally named Minion, changed the name to something totally
>meaningless, and are selling it without offering him any compensation.

What credit they are due - and more than the government requires. The
database is composed of names for every design we could find - not
just ones we also use. It is useful to many people - and not just
customers. Almost 20% of the questions on comp.fonts could be answered
in 1 minute with the database!

(snip more personal attacks)

>>>Since you are easily inclined to dismiss 'Do unto others as you would
>>>have done unto you' to some lower rung of morality -- somewhere below
>>>and after 'God's law and the law of the land' -- perhaps you might
>>>rethink this positioning in light of Christ's summary of the law: Love
>>>God, and love your neighbour as yourself.
>
>>Actually, I break it out for the different lesson it has to teach us,
>>and the different moral imperitave it binds on us. Nowhere do I call
>>it a "lower standard" You are lying to comp.fonts (and ignoring the
>>golden rule yourself) when you talk this way. There are enough
>>assertions in the post for you to deal with whithout you making up
>>things I did not say.
>
>How dare you accuse me of lying, yet again! You said 'after God’s law
>and the law of the land, you may develop a standard which you
>personally hold others to'. '_AFTER_', implying a secondary status, a
>lower standard. If this is not what you meant, you should be more
>careful in your wording.

"After" does not imply a secondary status in many occasions. (Take the
Oscars for instance. First place announced last) Since you don't know,
you should not be jumping to conclusions and deliberately leaving a
bad impression in other's mouths when you have no idea what I mean.
Spreading falsehood is called lying. You have done it deliberately too
many times for it to be merely "laziness in checking your facts" or
"spin doctoring"! You need to be careful to read no more into my
phrases than I mean

>Once again, the government has no right to appropriate anything 'for
>the good of the public' without fair compensation to the original
>owner or creator. Any government that assumes such powers is
>tyrannical.

Both Old and new Testaments say you are wrong. Plato says you are
wrong. Each government which has a military draft or tax says you are
wrong. I am reminded of the marching band where a proud mother said,
"Did you notice, everybody is out of step but my Johnny!"

>After 14 books, one hopes you might have realised that the 'Republic'
>is a dialogue on model government, NOT a treatise on ethics. I take
>your failure in this regard as further evidence of your inability to
>distinguish morality and legislation.

We should write and have your degree reposessed! Because Republic was
about a theoretical government, much of it concerned ethics. Try
reading it yourself. Plato was not a politician, he was a philosopher!
Socrates' own words continually talk about "right and wrong" for
hundreds of pages in the Republic.

You are also ignoring that the most telling arguments occur in
"Crito", not "The Republic". Crito concerns nothing BUT a citizen's
moral response to a bad government taking from a citizen!

John, you took 450 lines to try to deflect a thread off of a serious
issue. You didn't deal with any of the major issues raised. You laced
your work with personal attacks in almost every para.

Is this indicative of your personality? Do you relate to everyone who
has a philosophical disagreement with you in this way?

If you were going to lobby Congress or the Copyright Office to change
their mind, is this how you would do it?

Is this what you want to be known for up on the web?

Get a grip!

[Tiro TypeWorks]

pk...@flnet.com wrote:

>>Speaking of compensation, since you are so keen on arguing the
>>government's right to appropriation, please cite the articles of US
>>law which says that your government has the right to appropriate
>>_without compensation_. Your government has been carrying on a trade
>>embargo against Cuba for some forty years, largely based on the fact
>>that Castro's regime appropriated land from the Cuban upperclass
>>without compensation. In Britain, Canada and Germany -- just to name a
>>few -- the government's right of appropriation is tied to fair
>>compensation. I believe this is also true of the USA.

>I'm talking fonts here. (This is comp.fonts for all of you that have
>lost track.) Castro is too far afield for me when you refuse to deal
>with ANY of the 67 major points I have raised. John, go start your own
>Castro thread! This one concerns Copyright and moral issues I have
>raised. Not Castro! Not personalities!

Why should I feel inclined to directly address any of your arguments
when, as soon as I do so, you run away? My comments were not about
Castro. I directly challenged your belief in the inalienable right of
governments to appropriation, by pointing out that this appropriation
should only be carried out with fair compensation. This is an article
of law in most countries and, I believe, in your own. If this is not
the case, please provide the articles of US law which say this is not
so. This isn't 'about personalities', this is about law. You like law,
remember. Why are you ducking the question?

>>I fail to see how an Old Testament teaching on the 'property rights'
>>of spouses to each other's body has 'relevance to our topic'. I find
>>your grubby casuistry on the body of holy matrimony offensive.

>FYI, 1 Corinthians is in the NEW Testament. This scripture was
>included to show that the conventional morality of today in marriage
>of "I own my own body" was so immoral when the Church was started. It
>was understood that fewer things belonged to you exclusively than
>people like you assume today.

>Your outrageous lie about "grubby causistry" aside, in the early
>church, your body was your own until you entered into a marriage
>relationship. At that time, you lost exclusive rights to your own body
>- by universal marriage contract before God. Today, we have a social
>contract - with our government. The relationship is not so hard to
>understand. This precise thing is what Samuel warned the Israelites
>they would be entering into if they formed a secular government.

And this is any more relevant to intellectual property protection in
the digital age than Castro's illegal expropriation of land without
compensation?

>>I have not argued that 'governments have no right to intervene in
>>their economic sphere of influence', and I take your quotation marks
>>-- clearly meant to suggest that I said this -- as an act of pure
>>defamation. This, after all, is your method, to put words in the
>>mouths of your opponents, to fill your posts with carefully tailored
>>questions from the straw men you wish you were facing.

>Then John, please state clearly for the record;

>Do you believe that governments have no right to intervene in property
>matters in their economic sphere of influence?

Yes, I believe that governments have a right to intervene in property
matters in their economic sphere. No, I do not think this implies what
you think it implies. If the government wants to take something from
an individual and make it available to the public, they have a moral
and, excepting fonts in the USA it seems, legal obligation to
compensate that person.

>>I am saying that your Biblical citations, for the most part, record
>>the legislative decisions of the early Jewish state. The laws of any
>>nation, because they are the laws of man, are removed, to a greater or
>>lesser degree, from moral absolutes. Are you claiming that the laws of
>>the ancient Israelites dod not suffer this distinction?

>Yes! I will not debate it with you in a font forum. You either believe
>it or you don't. It is the official position of Israel and of most
>believers in Classic Christianity. This is Orthodox stuff here, John!

It is also 'Orthodox stuff' that we are flawed by original sin in all
we do. Even if all our laws came direct from God, we could still be
relied upon to apply them incorrectly as often as not. This is why
law, in and of itself, cannot be taken as a basis for morality. The
same ancient laws you cite have been employed for the oppression of
women, the murder of homosexuals and the keeping of slaves.

I sympathise with your desperate desire to believe that, once upon a
time, there was a perfect or near perfect society instituted by God.
Do you also believe that if only we could apply those laws forcefully
today, the world would be a better place?

>>You will
>>probably respond that the laws of the early Israelites were handed
>>down direct from God. They were still, however, laws for man, and took
>>into account man's weakness, his fallen state, his propensity for sin.

>The same state that we have today! I ask you again; Do you believe
>that these moral laws laid down by God are absolutes or not? Are God's
>rules about exclusivity of property, and governmental reach in that
>time an accptable basis of morality now? Yes or no?

I believe that the moral laws laid down by God are a challenge to us,
just as Christ's Sermon on the Mount is a challenge to us. How many
are truly meek? How many can really be considered peacemakers? I also
believe that the law given to Israel was a law of concession and
compromise; it had to be, for could any nation hope to follow God's
way absolutely? Any more than any individual?

>>You, however, seem to find some perverse thrill in
>>the notion of people dying for their sins, or what you perceive as
>>their sins. I begin to wonder if you are not, simply, a very sick
>>individual.

>Please stop attacking me personally in such an unadmirable fashion!
>You do not know what thrills me, perverse or otherwise. John, you have
>gone way past the limits of decency!

You are the one who has several times spoken, in what seem excited
tones, about people dying and being deserving of death. I understand
that you are quoting or paraphrasing your sources, but you do seem to
be 'getting into it' rather more than I would consider seemly.

>Go get your own thread buddy, this is the heart of this one. You know
>this is not about individuals. There are not enough people who care
>about "Paul King" in the world to fill the a medium size Mall. The
>reason this is such a burning issue on comp.fonts is because IT
>MATTERS TO THE REST OF THE WORLD WHAT THE ETHICS OF THE CURRENT FONT
>SITUATION IS.

Look, since it is ostensibly my question and the question of others
who doubt your ethics that you are replying to, you can at least do us
the service of letting us say what the question concerns. You've made
it quite clear what you think it concerns, but (if the look of the
present thread is anything to go by) a lot of people think you've
missed the point.

There now follows a direct argument, which I would be obliged if you
would make some effort to address.

You keep saying this argument is about property and about the
governments right to appropriate something and make it available. I am
stating _very clearly_, that I think there is a moral issue which is
independent of the argument you are pursuing. Let us simply accept,
for the sake of discussion, your points re. government. Let us say
'Yes, the government has a right to appropriate something which
someone has made, _even without compensation_, and place it in the
public realm'. (Please understand that I am making this statement
purely for the purpose of furthering this discussion, and not because
I agree with it.) This situation creates a moral issue -- that is, the
ethical question is not answered by your interpretation of the law;
rather, it exists because of your interpretation. If the law permits
you to do something, the ethical question remains: Is it something
that it is right to do?

Consider, that you are not alone in being permitted by the law to
'digitally extract' other peoples' type designs. Anyone can do it.
Indeed, I can do it, and have the necessary knowledge, skills and
tools to do at least a good a job as you. But I don't, and this isn't
because I lack your entrepreneurial flare, its because I think it is
wrong to profit from someone else's work without compensating them.

This is what I believe the central issue to be. You see that this
comes after and independent of what the law says. The law could say
'It is permitted to copy typeface designs'. I would still believe it
to be wrong to profit from someone else's work without compensation.
The law could say 'It is forbidden to copy typeface designs' (as the
law does say in other countries). I would believe the same thing.

Now, I'm not alone in believing this. Most of the people who have
questioned your ethics have done so on these grounds. There are a
number of ethical bases for such a belief: common sense (a mainstay of
philosophy), notions of fairplay, the idea that it is always better to
try to make something new than to copy what someone else has done, the
sanctity of human labour, etc. 'Do unto others as you would have done
unto you' is another sound basis for this belief, but this one falls
down, of course, when confronted by someone such as yourself. I might
not profit from copying other type designer's work because I would not
want others to profit from my own, but since you have not designed any
original types you can hardly be expected to feel the same way. What,
after all, have you got to lose?

It is because I believe the ethical question to exist independent of
what the law says, and of notions of property as defined by law or the
select philosophy you have chosen to put forward, that I am
unsatisfied by your answers.

>You want to keep it focused on me because

I want to keep it focussed on you because you're the one doing
something which a number of people find ethically questionable.

A further point now suggests itself. You speak voluminously of the
right of a 'legitimate' government to appropriate from individuals for
the good of its citizens as a whole. Quite apart from whether the SSi
CD is, in fact, for the good of US citizens as a whole, we should
pause on this notion of legitimate government. It seems to me that,
from my perspective, the only government which may legitimately
appropriate my work is the Canadian government. By what right does the
US government appropriate the work of foreign nationals? The obvious,
realistic answer is economic and military clout -- the US government
can appropriate pretty much anything it feels like appropriating. Is
this 'legitimate'? Or was Mao right, and power grows out of the barrel
of a gun? Perhaps, for the good of US citizenry, the US might like to
appropriate British Columbia as public parkland. Was Babylon
legitimate in appropriating the Jews?

I have posted, elsewhere in the newsgroup, a further statement of my
basic position (before I read your latest message). You shouldn't have
any trouble spotting it, but rest assured that the subject was
intended only to catch your eye, and not as a personal insult (any
more than your comments regarding the levels of my medication).

[Richard J. Kinch]

The tone of these screeds is startling.

I don't usually appreciate judges and lawyers, but it is clear that this would
be one issue that they should settle, if for no other reason than to take away
the incentive to blather on and on like drunken Pharisees.

Surely you people don't believe you're influencing anyone at this point? Go
back to work.

[Jacob Øvergaard]

pk...@flnet.com wrote:
>
> On 27 Jan 1997 17:41:18 GMT, chi...@aol.com (Chillmn) wrote:
>
> >You should all stop giving the Reverend King such a hard time about the
> >lengths of his posts. After all, could YOU justify profiteering from the
> >hard work of other designers with just a few well-chosen words?
> >
> I have clearly stated my position in this area many times using short
> posts. )These guys on the other side refused to answer the arguments
> raised in the short posts too, come to think of it) I have been
> repeatedly asked to provide a moral and philosophical basis for what I
> do. Each time, these Philistines punctuated their request for more
> info with rude insults and offensive behaviour. I have responded. Let
> them respond to the issues only (for a change), if they can!

And you yet again avoided to answer the simple question asked in this
thread:

How do you justify the direct exploitation of the work of others, to
whom you pay not one cent for the value that their work gives to your
dubious product?

> Paul King - President, Southern Software, Inc. (pk...@flnet.com)

> www.ssifonts.com is the best Internet source for all your font
> requirements, Mac or PC! We have the only free searchable font
> database on the web, cross-referencing 40,000 font names. Download our
> Type Directory to look at each font before you buy. 3320 fonts for
> $29.95!

Please shorten your signature, it's SPAM!
(this is not a "rude insult" or "offensive behaviour", just a request
for you to use some netiquette...Advertising in newsgroups is _not_ good
netiquette)

Jacob Overgaard

[D Synstel]

>>>>That post is accurate, descriptive of the thoughts of the day,

relevant to the questions asked on comp.fonts. It is also the most
complete body of research posted to date on the ethics of this issue.<<<<

I think I know the problem.

Mr king, nobody asked for a research paper. You are not going to impress
us with your hours spent searching for legal justification even if the
info is gleaned from the bible. I think the question is more about how you
justify what you do ethically.

You should try answering questions in a manner similar to one of these
below, not the way that you posted in your essay an foundry myths. Of
course these are only sample answers and yours may differ slightly.

I justify the use of other peoples work without paying them for it
because:

A. God spoke to me personally and said it was ok.

B. I have nothing better to do.

C. I hate font designers and know that secretly they are all rich and can
afford a little trimming from around the edges of thier fat overburdened
wallets, even though most hide all the immense wealth by living in
relative poverty.

D. I'm a complete and utter bastard with no ethics that has forgotten how
to deal with people because I'm so used to talking lagalese while
defending myself in the courtroom that I have forgotten how people really
communicate. All I really care about is how much research I can occupy my
otherwise empty life with anyway, so shut up.

E. I have no soul and thus cannot understand the difference between right
and wrong, only right and left. A concept that takes no real soul
searching to figure out.

F. Actually all I'm thinking about is how to get my .sig out anyway and I
hope to make as much money on this as I can until I get caught with my
pants down, at which time hopefully my insurance will pay the bill and
I'll go back to fleecing my flock.

As I said before, these are only sample answers and are not indicative of
what mr king may or may not state as his own, I have created them and they
use fictitious reasons and situations which may or may not be true or
false.

Don S

www.synfonts.com

[Tiro TypeWorks]

ki...@netline.net (Richard J. Kinch) wrote:

>The tone of these screeds is startling.

>I don't usually appreciate judges and lawyers, but it is clear that this would
>be one issue that they should settle, if for no other reason than to take away
>the incentive to blather on and on like drunken Pharisees.

Hello Richard. I don't know if you've waded through the Reverend's
'Font Myth No.1' yet, or if you feel at all inclined to do so, but I
was wondering if you would care to comment on his willingness to
challenge existing and future patents. You have acknowledged the art
involved in type design (even though you consider it insufficient to
warrant copyright protection) and the 'very great degree of craft'.
You've suggested to me that you support short term protection for type
design as provided by patent protection. The US Patent & Trademark
Office has shown its willingness to patent type design. In patenting a
growing number of designs, they have made clear decisions (based on
tests of obviousness) that the Reverend dismisses. I find this very
strange, coming from one who upholds the rightness, competence and
legal force of Copyright Office decisions. Are the PTO less right,
less competent and less forceful in their decisions?

Automatic short term protection (a kind of fifteen year copyright
protection, for example) would seem to me workable and, to your views,
fair. Britain solved the font copyright problem by creating a special
instance of copyright law to cover type design. Is there anything to
prevent this in the USA, apart from bureaucratic inertia?

>Surely you people don't believe you're influencing anyone at this point? Go
>back to work.

I intend to, even though I know that every letter I draw is just
waiting to be 'extracted' by the Reverend or another of his ilk.

[Richard M. Alderson III]

In article <pNL3O-g.y...@delphi.com> W Marshall <ywmar...@delphi.com>
writes:

>When will you understand the key wisdom that letterforms are not legally
>protected? This is the good that serves society with the free flow of
>information and ideas, without interminable legal impediment over trivial
>designs in serifs.

The "key wisdom" you cite is the legal position of only a single industrial
nation in a very large world. I have yet to see a lack of books, articles,
newspapers, magazines, advertisements, personal correspondence, and so on,
from all those benighted nations (such as that in which Mr. Hudson works) in
which type designs *are* legally protected, even though the U. S. Copyright
Office seems to thin that that is the only possible outcome of extending
protection to letterforms.

You may be tired of these discussions--as am I--but you are criticizing the
wrong participant, rather than that blackguard of the first water who steals
under the guise of "fair use" the work of others. Until he is stopped, I
will continue to tolerate this discussion, of which I am tired. (Though we
are undoubtedly tired of it for different reasons: I wish it were unnecessary
for it to continue.)
--
Rich Alderson You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
what not.
--J. R. R. Tolkien,
alde...@netcom.com _The Notion Club Papers_

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Tue, 28 Jan 1997 19:17:16 GMT, ti...@portal.ca (Tiro TypeWorks)
wrote:

>ki...@netline.net (Richard J. Kinch) wrote:

>
>>The tone of these screeds is startling.
>
>>I don't usually appreciate judges and lawyers, but it is clear that this would
>>be one issue that they should settle, if for no other reason than to take away
>>the incentive to blather on and on like drunken Pharisees.
>
>Hello Richard. I don't know if you've waded through the Reverend's
>'Font Myth No.1' yet, or if you feel at all inclined to do so, but I
>was wondering if you would care to comment on his willingness to
>challenge existing and future patents. You have acknowledged the art
>involved in type design (even though you consider it insufficient to
>warrant copyright protection) and the 'very great degree of craft'.
>You've suggested to me that you support short term protection for type
>design as provided by patent protection. The US Patent & Trademark
>Office has shown its willingness to patent type design. In patenting a
>growing number of designs, they have made clear decisions (based on
>tests of obviousness) that the Reverend dismisses. I find this very
>strange, coming from one who upholds the rightness, competence and
>legal force of Copyright Office decisions. Are the PTO less right,
>less competent and less forceful in their decisions?
>
>Automatic short term protection (a kind of fifteen year copyright
>protection, for example) would seem to me workable and, to your views,
>fair. Britain solved the font copyright problem by creating a special
>instance of copyright law to cover type design. Is there anything to
>prevent this in the USA, apart from bureaucratic inertia?
>

John,

I support the work of the Patent Office. I just showed you the limits
that the COURTS (from 1931 - today) have placed on that Office. These
are not MY challenges. These are Adobe's challenges to the limits of
what the Patent Office was designed to cover! This is Adobe clearly
not following the system as it was set up. As far as I can tell;

1) they placed no required patent notice in any font . You check out
your copies of Stone and Lucida and see if I am right. No monetary
damages are ever allowed until notice of patent is given. THEY chose
to give no one sufficient notice.

2) They declared themselves to be a "small business entity". I do not
believe that they are, do you? This may be a false declaration in
their patent.

3) They did not declare all prior art. It seems that they did not even
declare all prior art that they knew about, although the burden is on
them to find ALL prior art.

4) It seems to me that they probably tried to make their patent too
broad and cover more areas of the letterforms than were "original"

5) Their level of originality may not be high enough to meet the basic
levels required for a design patent.

John, surely you do not support the right of a company to file bogus
patent claims and then sue everybody around - even though no notice
was given? If this is what Adobe did, would you agree that it is moral
to defend oneself in court?

This trying of their patents is not about ME setting up new standards
for the Patent Office so much as it is about forcing Adobe to abide by
the same standards set up for us all. The same is true for the
Copyright portion of the case. Nobody is above the law! Can't you
agree?

[pk...@flnet.com]

On 28 Jan 1997 08:35:02 GMT, dsyn...@aol.com (D Synstel) wrote:

>I think I know the problem.
>
>Mr king, nobody asked for a research paper.

I was asked to clearly state my position. If you don't want a
"research paper" or you're one of those people who would rather die
than think, please ignore it and get on with your life. There are
plenty of people who do want to see it.

>You are not going to impress
>us with your hours spent searching for legal justification even if the
>info is gleaned from the bible. I think the question is more about how you
>justify what you do ethically.
>
>You should try answering questions in a manner similar to one of these
>below, not the way that you posted in your essay an foundry myths. Of
>course these are only sample answers and yours may differ slightly.
>
>
>I justify the use of other peoples work without paying them for it
>because:

(snip all the personal attacks and juvenile, potty mouth remarks)

>
>As I said before, these are only sample answers and are not indicative of
>what mr king may or may not state as his own, I have created them and they
>use fictitious reasons and situations which may or may not be true or
>false.
>

What WAS your purpose Don?

Did you add anything to the discussion? - or just detract?

Aren't my positions clear enough?

Where is the justification for YOUR position? Thoreau said "the
unexamined life is not worth living." Do you have any accepted ethical
authority for your position - or are you one of thos that feels that
your position can be justified by personally attacking others who
differ from you?

[Tiro TypeWorks]

I wrote:

>>Your database simply lets your
>>customers know whose designs have been renamed as what. Do you really
>>think Robert Slimbach likes that fact that you have taken a typeface
>>he personally named Minion, changed the name to something totally
>>meaningless, and are selling it without offering him any compensation.

To which, the Reverend replied:

>What credit they are due - and more than the government requires. The
>database is composed of names for every design we could find - not
>just ones we also use. It is useful to many people - and not just
>customers. Almost 20% of the questions on comp.fonts could be answered
>in 1 minute with the database!

This is the entry in the Reverend's database obtained by searching for
'Minion':

SSi's version: Atlantix SSi
Original Design: Minion (ASI)

Creator:
Date:
Number of Characters in SSi version: 0
Number of Kerning Pairs in SSi version: 0
Normal PANOSE:
Italic PANOSE:
Bold PANOSE:
Bold Italic PANOSE:

Useful indeed. I fully expect that he will change this information in
an attempt to discredit me, so hurry if you want to see it
unadulterated. (Now see if that doesn't generate more traffic than his
sig.)

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Mon, 27 Jan 1997 03:03:28 +0200, e...@knoware.nl (erik van blokland)
wrote:

>Considering Mr King needed 29184 bytes to *again* avoid answering the
>rather direct question:
>

>> How do you justify the direct exploitation of the work of others, to
>> whom you pay not one cent for the value that their work gives to your
>> dubious product?
>

>this might be the time to reconsider asking Mr King this question. The
>increase in length of his non-answers would pose a certain threat to the
>entire internet bandwidth.

Erik,
I have answered this question over and over. You need to be a reader
instead of a byte counter. You might learn a thing or two!

My justification has two parts, legal and moral. I use accepted
authority to justify each. I am consistent in my position even when it
causes me economic damage. I am willing to go to the mat with a big
company in a David v. Goliath match for my convictions.

The "other side" (which you are merely parroting - no new info in YOUR
post) refuses to deal with my justifications, pretending they are not
clearly laid out for all to see. This only undermines them, but the
entire process of comp.fonts which is to have a clear examination of
all sides of any font related issue.

The justification is there! The glove is thrown down! The only way not
to engage is to act like the glove was never thrown, I guess!

[Stephan Heilmayr]

In article <5cjap8$3...@thoth.portal.ca>,
ti...@portal.ca (Tiro TypeWorks) wrote:

> >Post your own research for all to read or get off the thread.
>
> Is that a request for the reading list on ethics?

Sounds like it to me. Anyone who thinks that the history of western
philosophy can be summed up by qouting a lot of Plato and quickly
dismissing Marx needs to do a bit more reading.

So, Mr. King, for starters you might try:

Aristotle -- The Nichomachean Ethics
Jean-Jaques Rousseau -- The Social Contract
Immanuel Kant -- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
John Stuart Mill -- Utilitarianism
John Rawls -- A Theory of Justice

Hardly an exhaustive overview -- just the first few important ethical works
that I thought of while composing this message. It should keep you busy
for a while, though. Get back to us when you've read (and understood)
them...

-- Klaus (heil...@math.berkeley.edu)

[D Synstel]

king:

>>>>I was asked to clearly state my position. If you don't want a
"research paper" or you're one of those people who would rather die
than think, please ignore it and get on with your life. There are
plenty of people who do want to see it.<<<

No, I'm one of those people with a documented 160 IQ and a desire to make
an honest living in my chosen field without parasites clinging and
profiteering from every creative step I take. I was even smart enough to
*understand* the original intended question that was asked of you, a feat
which you seem incapable of as shown by your failed attempts at it so far.

I doubt that anyone really cares what you spend your time researching,
unless you start researching the number for the kevorkian clinic.

Besides the biting sting of knowing that the hours I put into my work are
going to profit the likes of you and yours make my skin crawl. Although I
am generally a very patient person and have a kind a gentle nature, I feel
very real distaste towards letting people do this without at least letting
my opinions be known.

>You are not going to impress
>us with your hours spent searching for legal justification even if the
>info is gleaned from the bible. I think the question is more about how
you
>justify what you do ethically.
>
>You should try answering questions in a manner similar to one of these
>below, not the way that you posted in your essay an foundry myths. Of
>course these are only sample answers and yours may differ slightly.
>
>
>I justify the use of other peoples work without paying them for it
>because:

King:(snip all the personal attacks and juvenile, potty mouth remarks)>>>

I think it's a major step that you were able to identify with what I said.
after all, I didn't label them as personal attacks, you did. Did they hit
very close to home? after all they were just examples of different ways to
answer the question and not intended as personal remarks.
what I said was intended to make some of the people who are more than
angry with your continued quest for profit from other peoples work have a
bit of a laugh in this otherwise long (pretty much because of your
*exaustING* research) and infuriating topic.

King:

>>>What WAS your purpose Don?<<<

To bring joy and happiness to the oppressed font designer who is heavy
hearted at knowing you exist.

(see... one simple statement and I easily conveyed my purpose, try doing
this yourself...)

>>>Did you add anything to the discussion? - or just detract?<<

As if this is a disscussion that has the power to change anyones ways. The
time that is inversted in this thread is mearly a distraction to otherwise
creative type designers who will not change the opinion they hold of you
regardless of which source you quote.
Nor will they ever convince you to stop selling thier designs, it is my
opinion that you are unchangeable.

>>>Aren't my positions clear enough?<<<

No they are not, they are long and very well cloaked in quotes from books
and great men who did have the power to form thier own opinions. Yet they
are not really statements that give a clear position. several people have
stated that they think your answers are mearly misdirection.

Try answering in one sentence. That is *IF* you can, I don't think you
will be able to.

In my opinion, all you seem to be saying is that you lack the intelligence
to formulate your own reasons for anything you do and must justify your
actions not by weighing them against your own soul, but by finding obscure
references that make you feel better about the obviously evil way you have
of making a buck.

>>>>Where is the justification for YOUR position? Thoreau said "the
unexamined life is not worth living." Do you have any accepted ethical
authority for your position - or are you one of thos that feels that
your position can be justified by personally attacking others who
differ from you?<<<

I don't attack you. But you are right, I do differ from you. I would not
do what you do. The reason I give would be that I have far too much
ethical character to do so. I would consider it stealing and would sooner
get out of the business alltogether than to steal.

I find it a fitting commentary that, like your fonts, you take other
peoples reasons (quoted authorities) and use them instead of using what
gifts you do have and coming up with some personal reasons for doing what
you do.

Have you ever created a typeface design yourself?

Are you aware of what it takes?

Do you even *care* that what you do hurts other people?

The peace of mind I had is returning, for I know that in the end all evil
deeds will be repaid.
The bed you make in this life you will have to sleep on in the next. I
wish you a long sleep in that bed mr king. I don't think it will be a
pleasant sleep.

Don

www.synfonts.com
"home of a clear concience"

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Tue, 28 Jan 97 02:41:02 GMT, cf...@sahaja.demon.co.uk (Christopher
Fynn) wrote:

>"Rev." King
>
>Your twisted interpretation of Christian and Biblical doctrine
>and your use of the Bible to justify your stealing the fruits
>of other peoples's labour is nauseating.
>
>As far as I'm concerned your so-called "Christian ethics"
>stink. Using the Bible to justify your parasitical deeds is
>just about as low as you can get. People used to justify
>slavery and apartheid like this too - but it didn't make them
>right.
>

Chris,
If you think they stink, then clearly, carefully refute them and post
your research! I did not decide what I wanted to do, then went to the
laws and Bible to find out what I could get away with. I started with
the law and Bible and have always tried to stay inside their
boundaries.

I AM accusing you (and people like you who cannot clearly articulate
the basis for your assertions of right and wrong) of deciding what you
believe, and now trying to make the Law and Bible fit your
preconcieved notions. This is coming to the discussion table with
dirty hands!

Bandying about "emotional buzz words" without proof that that is my
position (like slavery and apartheid) has no place in a rational
discussion.

Address the issues raised, one at a time - or shut up!

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Sun, 26 Jan 1997 15:21:51 -0600, Jim Cape <ca...@ais.net> wrote:

>About the post (directly):
>
>1. Hitler quoted the Bible as a justification for trying to exterminate
>the Jews ("Jews crucified Jesus, they deserve to be punished, etc.
>etc.").

All the more reason for none of us to quote it apart from the meaning
of the original author's words. This is something you have done many
times!

>2. If you *really* believe in the bible, honestly pray and ask God if
>what you are doing is moral. Ask yourself *honestly* if Jesus would have
>done what you are doing if the technology existed.

I have, and I will. I believe I am doing things he would condone.

Jim, I REALLY believe that what I am doing is moral and supported in
principle by both the Old & New Testament as well as other
philosophers!

>3. Please answer Mr. Hudson's question:

>
>> How do you justify the direct exploitation of the work of others, to
>> whom you pay not one cent for the value that their work gives to your
>> dubious product?

I have, until I am blue in the face! You either won't read them or you
won't acknowledge them. You have never refuted my answers, indeed, you
cannot!

I have beliefs that you disagree with. They are strongly held and well
thought through. I have prayed about them. You need to do me the
courtesy of keeping to the issues not stooping to personal attacks as
others have done. You have not responded to any of the 60+ arguments I
posted on the correctness of my position.

>Sir, please stop posting this spam. What you are doing is either
>spamming or trolling. Both of which are not welcome here.
>
You are not the arbiter of what belongs up on comp.fonts! I am
answering questions I was asked on the net about fonts. BTW, not that
you care or will do anything about it, but both Scriptorium and
TypeIndex both have blatant ads up on comp.fonts as we speak. If you
weren't just headhunting and you applied the same standard to all,
your words would have more impact!

Many designers answer questions referring people to their own
founderies. Many questioners ask specific questions relating to the
location of font designs that can only be answered with a commercial
address.

Since you are the one saying it is spam. How do you tell? There are
others with longer sigs. Others talk about their products. Are you
saying that nobody should be on comp.fonts unless invited or
questioned? (I have been) Are you saying that others do not outright
solicit design work, or hits to their site??

In previous postings on this subject, it generated some of the longest
threads on comp.fonts. If it doesn't meet needs then there will be no
responses. If it does, there will be. The funny thing is, it seems
like your pals are finally on the run. After all their flames didn't
stop the overwhelming interest, you still want to keep the truth from
all these people!

These are questions I am frequently asked. You know this is true!
There are small group of font protectionists up on comp.fonts and a
whole lot of people who have been lied to by them. These "myths" (and
I use the word for charity's sake instead of more accurate
descriptions) have gone on long enough. I clearly refer to other
foundrys. Other foundrys also stand to benefit from my posting, as
will the public.

I was asked to cite my references. If the evidence is too complete or
overwhelming for you, then just ignore the post and don't download!
Everything is not posted on the web solely for you. Others want it
posted!

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Tue, 28 Jan 1997 07:17:26 GMT, ti...@portal.ca (Tiro TypeWorks)
wrote:

>Why should I feel inclined to directly address any of your arguments

>when, as soon as I do so, you run away?

None of us would know! You have yet to directly address any of my
arguments, let alone successfully refute any of them! Castro is a new
line of questioning and begs the answer to the issues of THIS thread!

>My comments were not about
>Castro. I directly challenged your belief in the inalienable right of
>governments to appropriation, by pointing out that this appropriation
>should only be carried out with fair compensation. This is an article
>of law in most countries and, I believe, in your own. If this is not
>the case, please provide the articles of US law which say this is not
>so. This isn't 'about personalities', this is about law. You like law,
>remember. Why are you ducking the question?

Ask it nicely under the Myth #1 thread where it belongs!

>And this is any more relevant to intellectual property protection in
>the digital age than Castro's illegal expropriation of land without
>compensation?

My example is much more relevant to a discussion of ethics. Plenty of
countries appropriate a citizen's goods without compensation. They are
not constrained morally, but by the laws they are bound by. That is
properly an issue of law. Marriage, on the other hand is more
universal, being observed across all cultures. Apostle Paul wrote this
book to a multi cultural crossroads and it has a definite moral
bearing on the issue at hand. Keep up with the subject, John.

>Yes, I believe that governments have a right to intervene in property
>matters in their economic sphere. No, I do not think this implies what
>you think it implies. If the government wants to take something from
>an individual and make it available to the public, they have a moral
>and, excepting fonts in the USA it seems, legal obligation to
>compensate that person.

I have a major discussion in Myth #1 of the myriad of ways that the
government TAXES things. Again, you miss the point. It is not a
TAKING, unless they take the entire thing or render it unusable to
you. This is clearly seen in zoning or land condemnation cases. It is
a TAX (for want of a better word) if they take a small part and leave
the rest for your livelyhood. That more properly describes what the
government has done - and also is the exact point of many of my
Biblical examples.

>
>It is also 'Orthodox stuff' that we are flawed by original sin in all
>we do. Even if all our laws came direct from God, we could still be
>relied upon to apply them incorrectly as often as not. This is why
>law, in and of itself, cannot be taken as a basis for morality.

Now THIS is clearly the circular reasoning called sophistry.

1) Even if all our laws came direct from God, we could still be

relied upon to apply them incorrectly as often as not.

2) This is why law, in and of itself, cannot be taken as a basis for
morality. - even if it comes from God and predates the forming of a
secular nation.

3) So then, all moral bases are applied incorrectly and you should not
use them, quote them, or rely upon them. Look to John Hudson instead!
Without quoting a single moral authority as his basis, he undermines
all the moral traditions of the last 4000 years!

You are directly contradicted by the scriptures that say;

Rom 2:23b do you dishonor God by breaking the law?

Rom 2:13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in
God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared
righteous.

Gal 3:19 What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added BECAUSE
OF transgressions

A moral code was given to the Israelites that they were to abide by.
It was given with the knowledge that they had human weaknesses, and
morality (or righteousness - a word encompassing morality) accrued to
the one keeping this moral code!

>
>I sympathise with your desperate desire to believe that, once upon a
>time, there was a perfect or near perfect society instituted by God.

I cannot see how you say you accept the Bible and say you DON'T
believe in that.

>I believe that the moral laws laid down by God are a challenge to us,
>just as Christ's Sermon on the Mount is a challenge to us. How many
>are truly meek? How many can really be considered peacemakers? I also
>believe that the law given to Israel was a law of concession and
>compromise; it had to be, for could any nation hope to follow God's
>way absolutely? Any more than any individual?

But will you conceed the previously quoted scripture that all who
could keep the moral code (if any) would be considered righteous? Is
that moral code the proper basis for determining morality? Yes or no?

>You are the one who has several times spoken, in what seem excited
>tones, about people dying and being deserving of death. I understand
>that you are quoting or paraphrasing your sources, but you do seem to
>be 'getting into it' rather more than I would consider seemly.

You are the one who has done nothing to refute the underlying
statements of morality (or your lack of it) other than to call me
"excited" or "unseemly". If you don't mind my saying so, these are
rather muted refutations of 4000 years of philosophy and ethics!

>Look, since it is ostensibly my question and the question of others
>who doubt your ethics that you are replying to, you can at least do us
>the service of letting us say what the question concerns. You've made
>it quite clear what you think it concerns, but (if the look of the
>present thread is anything to go by) a lot of people think you've
>missed the point.

I have answered your questions thoroughly and completely. If you want
to mud wrestle concerning me personally, that does not concern
comp.fonts at all. You could do everybody a favor and vent on private
email. You have a duty to comp.fonts to keep the subject on the issues
of fonts. You try to deflect from the burning issues that keep the
newsgroup abuzz and could possibly remake the entire industry on the
excuse that you deserve the personal privilege of turning the thread
into a personal attack on a person???? Come on, John!!

> Let us simply accept,
>for the sake of discussion, your points re. government. Let us say
>'Yes, the government has a right to appropriate something which
>someone has made, _even without compensation_, and place it in the
>public realm'. (Please understand that I am making this statement
>purely for the purpose of furthering this discussion, and not because
>I agree with it.) This situation creates a moral issue -- that is, the
>ethical question is not answered by your interpretation of the law;
>rather, it exists because of your interpretation. If the law permits
>you to do something, the ethical question remains: Is it something
>that it is right to do?

Samuel, Plato, Marx, and Jefferson all thought it was appropriate. Who
can you bring to the table outside your 10 protectionist friends to
buttress your side of the argument?

>Consider, that you are not alone in being permitted by the law to
>'digitally extract' other peoples' type designs. Anyone can do it.
>Indeed, I can do it, and have the necessary knowledge, skills and
>tools to do at least a good a job as you. But I don't, and this isn't
>because I lack your entrepreneurial flare, its because I think it is
>wrong to profit from someone else's work without compensating them.
>
>This is what I believe the central issue to be. You see that this
>comes after and independent of what the law says. The law could say
>'It is permitted to copy typeface designs'. I would still believe it
>to be wrong to profit from someone else's work without compensation.
>The law could say 'It is forbidden to copy typeface designs' (as the
>law does say in other countries). I would believe the same thing.

Yes, you have the right in a free society to live in any way that does
not conflict with the laws. But, what moral authority do you bring to
show us that your version of morality is not your own idiosyncratic
foible?

>Now, I'm not alone in believing this. Most of the people who have
>questioned your ethics have done so on these grounds.

Yes, you have 10 protectionist friends. You personally attack people
who disagree with you which dampens the debate and has generally left
you in posession of the field. This does not count as a win! To win,
you must answer the hard questions - which you have not even begun to
do!

You must stop attacking people to the point that others consider it an
open forum where their opinions, even if wrong, will be heard,
discussed, and they will be treated with respect.

>There are a
>number of ethical bases for such a belief: common sense (a mainstay of
>philosophy), notions of fairplay, the idea that it is always better to
>try to make something new than to copy what someone else has done, the
>sanctity of human labour, etc.

Show us all one accepted philosophy which has incorporated these great
virtues you have listed to the radical extent that it would impair a
government from MORALLY passing a Copyright law such as we have in the
US. You are just running a vague notion up the flagpole to see if we
will salute it. This does not count! Please be specific.

>'Do unto others as you would have done
>unto you' is another sound basis for this belief, but this one falls
>down, of course, when confronted by someone such as yourself.

It sounds perilously close to another personal attack, John. Please
clearly show how my use of the Golden Rule twisted or warped the
original meaning and posit your own theory of the Golden Rule that can
stand scrutiny.

>I might
>not profit from copying other type designer's work because I would not
>want others to profit from my own, but since you have not designed any
>original types you can hardly be expected to feel the same way. What,
>after all, have you got to lose?

If 5000 others did what I am advocating, it would hurt the return I
expect on my labors. That is clear for all to see. I am advocating
something for fairness sake because it is moral. My illustration about
Jerry Sapperstein clearly showed his moral stance was consistent even
in the face of an actual loss. You are avoiding the question raised
there, John!

>It is because I believe the ethical question to exist independent of
>what the law says, and of notions of property as defined by law or the
>select philosophy you have chosen to put forward, that I am
>unsatisfied by your answers.

But, you mus accept SOME basis of morality outside your own version of
"common sense", right? Please tell us this is so! You have tried to
dismiss the very underpinnings of our culture and society as being
morally insufficient. What do you propose to replace them with??

>I want to keep it focussed on you because you're the one doing
>something which a number of people find ethically questionable.

Then go off the web! Comp.fonts is about fonts!

>It seems to me that,
>from my perspective, the only government which may legitimately
>appropriate my work is the Canadian government. By what right does the
>US government appropriate the work of foreign nationals? The obvious,
>realistic answer is economic and military clout -- the US government
>can appropriate pretty much anything it feels like appropriating. Is
>this 'legitimate'? Or was Mao right, and power grows out of the barrel
>of a gun? Perhaps, for the good of US citizenry, the US might like to
>appropriate British Columbia as public parkland. Was Babylon
>legitimate in appropriating the Jews?

THe US only deals with fonts in it's economic sphere of influence -
it's right. Canada, the UK, and all others signing the Berne
Convention assented by treaty to this. THis entire concept of "sphere
of influence" is discussed in the "render to Caesar" section.

John, if your intent by the flames is to "catch my eye" this can ve
done in a much more polite way by emailing me a short note to
pk...@flnet.com . I have tried to respond to all semi-reasonable
posts.

[Richard J. Kinch]

Tiro TypeWorks (ti...@portal.ca) wrote:

: Hello Richard.
: You've suggested to me that you support short term protection for type

: design as provided by patent protection. The US Patent & Trademark
: Office has shown its willingness to patent type design. In patenting a
: growing number of designs, they have made clear decisions (based on
: tests of obviousness) that the Reverend dismisses. I find this very
: strange, coming from one who upholds the rightness, competence and
: legal force of Copyright Office decisions. Are the PTO less right,
: less competent and less forceful in their decisions?

My opinion is that utilitarian designs (typefaces, auto bodies, wrench
handles) are a different class of work from ordinary works of authorship
(books, music, the fine arts). The latter serve no utilitarian purpose in
themselves, they serve as abstractions only and thereby become a higher forms
of intellectual property. By this I don't mean that, say, a medical textbook
isn't of great utility, but rather that you don't literally swallow the book
as medicine or cut flesh with it for surgical utility.

A cookbook on cake decorating deserves copyright, while a pretty pattern for
decorated cakes doesn't, because the primary purpose of the icing is to be
eaten. The artistry or craftmanship is secondary.

: Automatic short term protection (a kind of fifteen year copyright

: protection, for example) would seem to me workable and, to your views,
: fair.

I thought more like 7 years, but it's a judgment call.

: Is there anything to

: prevent this in the USA, apart from bureaucratic inertia?

I see grave problems. Identifying the truly original versus infringing
versus minimal designs seems an impossible task for a jury. It's not like
music where they play two songs and see if they sound alike.

Also, typefaces are pretty small potatoes in this realm. There are so
many bigger industries that would be put into turmoil by a change in the
design protection rules, that you're not going to get a special law passed
just for type.

[Francis CHARTIER]

Le Tue, 28 Jan 1997 19:29:34 GMT, pk...@flnet.com a écrit :

<cut a lot of legal noise>

A lot of legal bullshit to hide a few simple facts..

A crook is a crook.

Strict adherence to legal bullshit can't compensate lack of ethics.

How do you spell parasite ?

*------------------------------------------------------*
| Francis Chartier f.cha...@atlantel.fr |
| Quid Novi ? http://www.enfrance.com/quid-novi |
*------------------------------------------------------*
| * PAO * Pre-Presse * Photogravure * |
*------------------------------------------------------*

[D Synstel]

>>>>Chris,
If you think they stink, then clearly, carefully refute them and post
your research! I did not decide what I wanted to do, then went to the
laws and Bible to find out what I could get away with. I started with
the law and Bible and have always tried to stay inside their
boundaries.

I AM accusing you (and people like you who cannot clearly articulate
the basis for your assertions of right and wrong) of deciding what you
believe, and now trying to make the Law and Bible fit your
preconcieved notions. This is coming to the discussion table with
dirty hands!

Bandying about "emotional buzz words" without proof that that is my
position (like slavery and apartheid) has no place in a rational
discussion.
<<<<

pardon me mr King, but by this example (see below)

>>>I did not decide what I wanted to do, then went to the
laws and Bible to find out what I could get away with. I started with
the law and Bible and have always tried to stay inside their
boundaries. <<<

are you saying that if slavery and apartied were still legal, then you
would advocate them?

There are many laws on the books that are wrong and most people understand
this, only those with truly black hearts try to profit from this kind of
injustice.

Don

www.synfonts.com

[Andre G Isaak]

On 29 Jan 1997 06:49:28 EST, pk...@flnet.com (Paul King) wrote:

> On 26 Jan 1997 11:43:17 -0500, agi...@asimov.oit.umass.edu (Andre G
> Isaak) wrote:
>
> >Mr. King,
> >
> >You, sir, are a complete ass. Please go and find another newsgroup,
> >preferrably one that I don't read. I recommend alt.test.
> >
> >I don't mean to be rude (well, actually I do), but reading the same drivel
> >from you reposted over and over again is making me nauseous.
> >
> You sir, ARE rude, and uncivilized. You can leave if you want to hide
> your head in the sand. Your insults are not an intelligent response.

Mr. King,

I admit that this wasn't the most well thought-out post I have ever made,
but you are hardly in a position to comment on other people being
uncivilised or rude. When it comes to the former, actions, as they say,
speak louder than words. And, where the latter is concerned, you have,
at one time or other, insulted almost everyone who has attempted to
enter into any form of debate with you.

For example, consider the following very mature statement you made in
reply to one of Mr. Hudson's recent posts:

> I wish that there was a minimum IQ standard for response in certain
> threads!

This is particularly ironic coming from yourself. In your various 'Font
Foundry Myth' posts you have strewn together a divers collection of
facts without exhibiting any comprehension of those facts at all. At
this point, I am not even convinced that you could perform to my
satisfaction on a Turing Test, let alone an IQ test.

But, I digress...

The point which I was trying to make to you was that your postings in
this group are becoming highly unwelcome, not only I suspect to me, but
to the majority of other readers, because your posts are growing in
length without adding any new content, apart from some novel attempts at
philosophising and theologising.

You continue to cut and paste from earlier posts arguments which failed
to convince anyone the first time round. Why do you believe, then, that
repetition will strengthen your position?

Also, we are all suitably impressed with your skills at circumlocution,
but it would be nice to occassionally get a direct answer to a question
from you.

Thus, all I am asking is that if you want to continue to argue your
position in this group, please at least have the courtesy of treating
this as a dialogue rather than a very repetitive monologue, which is
what you have been doing up until now. Otherwise, I urge you to take my
original advice and simply leave.

> On 26 Jan 1997 11:43:17 -0500, agi...@asimov.oit.umass.edu (Andre G
> Isaak) wrote:
>
> >In article <32ea6682...@news.packet.net> Paul King wrote:
> >
> >[pages and pages of rambling error-ridden cut-and-paste apologetics and
> >feeble attempts at self-justification in terms of misinterpretations of
> >the cultural mores of 4th Century BC Attica deleted].
>
>
> Not so!
>
> Prove the errors!
>
> Show the misinterpretation!

>
> That post is accurate, descriptive of the thoughts of the day,
> relevant to the questions asked on comp.fonts. It is also the most
> complete body of research posted to date on the ethics of this issue.

What you posted hardly contituted a 'complete body of research' on
ethics. You made some random citations from Plato's political writings
and from Biblical sources and attempted to twist these to your
advantage.

I won't comment here on any of your Biblical citations, since I know
very little about the sources themselves, and am sure that others to
whom these sources hold more personal significance will address the
points you raise.

As for your philosophical positions, they were not merely error-ridden.
They were completely naive, as illustrated below

> QUESTION
> If this logic was applied to everything, anything created, once put
> into the marketplace, belongs to everybody. Wouldn’t there be little
> reason to compensate the inventor or designer? Since there would be no
> hope of compensation, there would be little reason for any inventor or
> designer to introduce their work into the marketplace, wouldn’t
> creativity would be stifled, and society as a whole would suffer the
> loss?
>
> ANSWER
> Of course this is not true! This is known in logic as the fallacy
> "reducto ad absurdam" (taking a thing to the point of absurdity to
> belittle the underlying truth) This is as ridiculous as saying "You
> want to be a Doctor? What if everybody in the world was a doctor?"

Note the misuse of the term 'reductio ad absurdum' here. Reductio ad
absurdum is not a type of fallacy. It is a form of argumentation and a
perfectly valid one. The term you want is 'slippery slope', which is
misapplied to this little scenario anyways.

The reason I highlight this little mistake, which is representative of
your entire post, is simply to point out the fact that little or no
understanding was expended in your 'research'. This error is something
so trivial that anyone who had taken (and paid attention during) a first
year college philosophy course would not have made it. The remainder of
your post represents a similar attempt to exploit every little bit of
philosophical trivia that you happen to be aware of, however dimly, in
order to show how much 'research' was conducted. You succeed, however,
only in doing the opposite.

You cannot expect to glean an understanding of ethics from a single
essay on Plato taken from Encyclopaedia Brittanica (or whatever your
source was). To go through all of your errors would involve more time or
space than I am willing to devote to this, but I will make a few
remarks.

First, The Republic is a dialogue on political philosophy, and as such,
is rather intimately connected to the time and place of its writing. The
social structure of Athens in the 4th Century BC diverges enough from
the modern world that you cannot expect it to be applicable to the here
and now even if your interpretation of it were valid. While it is true
that Plato has had a lasting impact on Western Philosophy, I doubt very
much that you would find any modern philosophers looking to Plato for a
theory of political justice. Even in his own time, he was hardly
universally accepted.

Since, however, you seem bent on taking Plato to be representative of
all Western Philosophy, may I suggest the following exercise for you.
Plato wrote a short little dialogue called the Euthyphro very early in
his career. I suggest that you get a hold of this dialogue, and read it
with the following modifications: Replace every occurrence of the word
'god' with the word 'government'. Alternately, replace every occurrence
of the word 'god' with 'law' or 'legal system'. Plato's original
argument will remain valid with these minor adjustments, and may help to
show you why the question of the ethicality of your actions remains
completely independent of the legality of those actions, which thus far
is all you have really addressed.

The sad fact is that your error-prone treatment of philosophy mirrors in
many ways your treatment of fonts and font technology. The former can,
in some sense, be forgiven, since as a font thief^H^H^H^H^Hreseller you
are not responsible for this area. The latter, however, is another can
of worms...

Finally, I would like to make one last point, which is that you have on
numerous occassions dismissed the various designers with whom you have
been arguing in this and related threads on the grounds that they are
merely attempting to protect their own financial interests.

I would just like to make it clear that I have no financial interests in
this debate. I have never created a font with the intention of selling
or otherwise distributing it. I have on various occassions, however,
designed fonts for my personal use which were intended to supplement the
character sets of existing fonts. I have done this largely because I
cannot afford to license fonts with rich enough character sets to
satisfy both my needs and aesthetic preferences.

Were I arguing in my own best interest, I should therefore be siding
with whomever seems bent on making available fonts at lower prices than
most foundries offer today. However, even by designing what are very
indisputably derived works (and probably not even very good ones at
that), one comes to appreciate the amount of effort and talent which
goes into the creation of a new typeface.

You have said on several occassions that you do value type. However, the
extent to which you belittle the creative expenditures of others makes
it very difficult for me to believe this. You have discussed aspects of
font creation in ways which make it very clear to me that you have never
personally been involved in font design. Given this, it is difficult for
me to fathom how you can possibly make claims about which rights are and
are not due to the designer of a typeface.

Andre G. Isaak

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Tue, 28 Jan 1997 17:06:56 -0800, heil...@math.berkeley.edu
(Stephan Heilmayr) wrote:
>>
>> Is that a request for the reading list on ethics?
>

>Sounds like it to me. Anyone who thinks that the history of western
>philosophy can be summed up by qouting a lot of Plato and quickly
>dismissing Marx needs to do a bit more reading.
>
>So, Mr. King, for starters you might try:
>
>Aristotle -- The Nichomachean Ethics
>Jean-Jaques Rousseau -- The Social Contract
>Immanuel Kant -- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
>John Stuart Mill -- Utilitarianism
>John Rawls -- A Theory of Justice
>
>Hardly an exhaustive overview -- just the first few important ethical works
>that I thought of while composing this message. It should keep you busy
>for a while, though. Get back to us when you've read (and understood)
>them...
>

Why don't YOU read them, extract any parts that YOU think deal with
these issues and post them yourself! I have already made my points. In
being as thorough as I was, I have been blasted. My points are made.
The other side HAS NOT ANSWERED ONE single question using any
generally accepted authority. THis is outrageous that the rest of you
would let them get away with this!

The burden of proof should be on them in the first place. I have
merely shown what current laws and custom are - and then shown how the
property traditions go 4000 years into the past. The burden is on them
to show why the status quo should be changed.

All they have been inclined to do so far is to merely attack an
individual. Just because you know the names of a few books doesn't
prove a thing! You must make a logical refutation of 60+ arguments,
supporting it with research. So, go get busy!

[pk...@flnet.com]

On 28 Jan 1997 21:43:35 GMT, dsyn...@aol.com (D Synstel) wrote:

>king:
>>>>>I was asked to clearly state my position. If you don't want a
>"research paper" or you're one of those people who would rather die
>than think, please ignore it and get on with your life. There are
>plenty of people who do want to see it.<<<
>
>No, I'm one of those people with a documented 160 IQ and a desire to make
>an honest living in my chosen field without parasites clinging and
>profiteering from every creative step I take. I was even smart enough to
>*understand* the original intended question that was asked of you, a feat
>which you seem incapable of as shown by your failed attempts at it so far.

IQ is just potential. It would be terrible to have written on your
tombstone, "He always had potential!"

While my IQ can't boil water, it is higher than yours - so what's your
point. What kind of contest are you trying to turn this into anyway.
What do you want us to measure next?? And how does it relate to fonts?
I still say you would rather die than think through these issues!

>I doubt that anyone really cares what you spend your time researching,
>unless you start researching the number for the kevorkian clinic.

You use all 160 of your IQ points to come up with juvenile remarks
like this?

>Besides the biting sting of knowing that the hours I put into my work are
>going to profit the likes of you and yours make my skin crawl. Although I
>am generally a very patient person and have a kind a gentle nature, I feel
>very real distaste towards letting people do this without at least letting
>my opinions be known.

You have a right to your opinions, always. I am not sure you have the
right for us to entertain your opinions when you have the mental
capacity, but refuse to do the hard work necessary to justify your
opinions! "Making your skin crawl" is kinda' touchy-feelly, but hardly
a reasonable response to difficult questions that your side must now
answer. I'd say you need to get on with it.

>I think it's a major step that you were able to identify with what I said.
>after all, I didn't label them as personal attacks, you did. Did they hit
>very close to home?

Not really, I'm a big boy. If stuff like this could stop me, I'da been
stopped months ago! High IQ is supposed to be able to detect subtle
patterns in data. Maybe you can get back with your cronies and tell
them they need to try something else.

The tactic of trying to answer the questions might well backfire, but
at least they wouldn't be hiding their heads in the sand or avoiding
reality any more.

>after all they were just examples of different ways to
>answer the question and not intended as personal remarks.
>what I said was intended to make some of the people who are more than
>angry with your continued quest for profit from other peoples work have a
>bit of a laugh in this otherwise long (pretty much because of your
>*exaustING* research) and infuriating topic.

Nope, they were personal remarks and you intended them to be taken as
such. Your weak attempts to lie your way out of the undeniable thrust
of your words shows an astonishing lack of being responsible for your
own actions.

>>>>Did you add anything to the discussion? - or just detract?<<
>
>As if this is a disscussion that has the power to change anyones ways. The
>time that is inversted in this thread is mearly a distraction to otherwise
>creative type designers who will not change the opinion they hold of you
>regardless of which source you quote.
>Nor will they ever convince you to stop selling thier designs, it is my
>opinion that you are unchangeable.

It is a battle for the hearts and minds of the people who love fonts,
care about the laws and morality, who have been fed a 15 year long
line of bull by people like yourself. These people will decide the
future of fonts, voting both with their ballots and their pocketbooks.
If enough people realize that "the emperor has no clothes", then the
silly, unsupportable, unrealistic, immoral positions of the few
protectionist designers (and they DON'T speak for all designers) will
be laughed off the web.

>>>>Aren't my positions clear enough?<<<
>
>No they are not, they are long and very well cloaked in quotes from books
>and great men who did have the power to form thier own opinions. Yet they
>are not really statements that give a clear position. several people have
>stated that they think your answers are mearly misdirection.

I preface each quote with my own clear statement. I "cloak" nothing.
There is nothing ambiguous in my comments. A well motivated 15 year
old could understand MY words in the myths. For a person with your IQ
to try to pull this lie over on the public shows how far you will go
to avoid answering the issues. What we seem to be getting from you and
your friends is, "Issues?? What issues?" Well, that dog won't hunt!
There are too many people with 40 less IQ points than you who clearly
see the issues AND the arguments. You and your friends are well and
truly hung out to dry.

>Try answering in one sentence. That is *IF* you can, I don't think you
>will be able to.

Don't HAVE to. It is a complex issue. Many times reality IS complex! I
explained it clearly, and that is what is important. I don't have to
"sound bite" for you or any one else! I'm not running for office!

>In my opinion, all you seem to be saying is that you lack the intelligence
>to formulate your own reasons for anything you do and must justify your
>actions not by weighing them against your own soul, but by finding obscure
>references that make you feel better about the obviously evil way you have
>of making a buck.

That's rich! What a lie! NOBODY would say about themselves that they
"lack the intelligence to formulate their own reasons"! That is merely
what you want others to believe, for your own motivations. You just
can't take responsibility for your own ideas and words, can you?

>I don't attack you. But you are right, I do differ from you. I would not
>do what you do. The reason I give would be that I have far too much
>ethical character to do so. I would consider it stealing and would sooner
>get out of the business alltogether than to steal.

But would you sooner get off the web than lie and mischaracterize
another's positions? You SPEAK of character. When can we see some?

If my positions are wrong, made of lies and venal, I believe a person
of character would do well to respond to any questions asked. That, of
course, is why I continue the discussion with you and your friends in
the face of lies, denial of reality, refusal to address the questions
which form the baisi of this thread, and personal attacks.

>I find it a fitting commentary that, like your fonts, you take other
>peoples reasons (quoted authorities) and use them instead of using what
>gifts you do have and coming up with some personal reasons for doing what
>you do.

Most of us realize that our moral basis comes from others who have
come before us. We credit these people, celebrate the traditions, and
appropriate it for our own lives. This holds true in type as well as
ethics. You protectionists are like a flower, cut off from it's roots
and put in a vase, denying that the beauty you have came from any
other source than the bud itself! I accept that I have roots, that my
ideas and heritage and art are derived from others. That may be why we
see your kind as so arrogant, wanting all the credit for things that
are clearly not all yours. You don't understand why we see your grab
for design exclusivity as immoral. You believe the designs come all
from you of gifts you have. Your outlook on life is so "self"
centered, it is brittle. Our outlook embraces our roots, like
outriggers on a canoe, lending extra stability. OF COURSE a person
like me would thoughtfully derive his moral basis from things greater
than myself. And of course, a person like you would have a hard time
understanding that!

>Have you ever created a typeface design yourself?

Yes!

>Are you aware of what it takes?

Yes!

>Do you even *care* that what you do hurts other people?

I believe the hurt is of their own making. They deliberately choose to
ignore the laws and customs of the last 4000 years to their own peril.
Then they refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, blaming
others. A lot of people would define this as "immoral behavior" as
well!

>Don
>
>www.synfonts.com
>"home of a clear concience"

You know, Don, an EDUCATED concience is a valuable thing! Your
concience should prick you concerning a moral code that is generally
accepted by your society. I have asked others, with no response. So,
I'll ask you too. What is the basis for your belief that each designer
should morally have exclusive rights to their fonts? Please cite
generally accepted moral authorities. Please also tell why the moral
authorities that I cited should be disregarded and your standards
adopted by society as a whole, instead?

[Stephan Heilmayr]

In article <32f10476....@news.packet.net>, pk...@flnet.com wrote:

|>> Note the misuse of the term 'reductio ad absurdum' here. Reductio ad
|>> absurdum is not a type of fallacy. It is a form of argumentation and a
|>> perfectly valid one. The term you want is 'slippery slope', which is
|>> misapplied to this little scenario anyways.
|>

|> Nope! I meant what I said! YOU applied slippery slope as a straw man
|> argument and then knocked it down! "Reducto ad absurdam" IS a type of
|> logical fallacy. It can be found in Jevons' classic work "Elementary
|> Lessons in Logic" on the chapter on "Reductions of the Imperfect
|> Syllogism" as well as in the dictionary in the back. If you think it

Well, I've never read Jevons' "classic" work (in fact, I've never even
heard of it, despite having studied logic for many years), but I do know
that Reductio ad Absurdum is a valid form of logical inference. Perhaps
Jevons has defined "Reducto ad absurdam" to be something different. I've
just looked up the title on line, and it looks like the book dates from
1908 (and that's for the new revised edition). Things have changed quite a
bit since then...

-- Klaus (heil...@math.berkeley.edu)

[Stephan Heilmayr]

In article <32f0f5ce....@news.packet.net>, pk...@flnet.com wrote:

> (Stephan Heilmayr) wrote:
>
> >So, Mr. King, for starters you might try:
> >
> >Aristotle -- The Nichomachean Ethics
> >Jean-Jaques Rousseau -- The Social Contract
> >Immanuel Kant -- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
> >John Stuart Mill -- Utilitarianism
> >John Rawls -- A Theory of Justice
> >
> >Hardly an exhaustive overview -- just the first few important ethical
> >works that I thought of while composing this message. It should keep
> >you busy for a while, though. Get back to us when you've read (and
> >understood) them...
> >
> Why don't YOU read them, extract any parts that YOU think deal with
> these issues and post them yourself! I have already made my points. In
> being as thorough as I was, I have been blasted. My points are made.

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of philosophical
argumentation. It's not at all like books of laws, where you just cite the
relevant portions. Any serious philosophical work contains sustained
argumentation that can't just be summed up in little sound bites.

You were the one who had claimed to examine the ethics of what you're doing
by going to major philosophical works about ethics. Anyone with even a
passing acquaintance with the field of ethics can see that you haven't done
so. Have a look at a reading list for any philosophy course in ethics (or
rather, any such course that uses original works rather than a textbook).
You'll be almost certain to find Aristotle, Kant, and at least one of the
utilitarians (like Mill) on there. On the other hand, you might find Plato
or Marx on a few such reading lists, but probably not on most of them. If
you're going to look at the philosophical issues involved, you need to have
at least a nodding acquaintance with the material -- at least enough to
know what works are relevant. Since you were the one who claimed to be
discussing ethics, it's up to you to show that you know something about it.

> The other side HAS NOT ANSWERED ONE single question using any
> generally accepted authority. THis is outrageous that the rest of you
> would let them get away with this!

Philosophy is not based on authority. It is based on argumentation. You
seem to have a lot of trouble with that idea.

> All they have been inclined to do so far is to merely attack an
> individual. Just because you know the names of a few books doesn't
> prove a thing! You must make a logical refutation of 60+ arguments,
> supporting it with research. So, go get busy!

"60+ arguments"? Perhaps you could give us a numbered list...

And what's this about making a logical refutation and supporting it with
research? Perhaps you're a bit unclear on the concept of a logical
refutation?

-- Klaus (heil...@math.berkeley.edu)

[pk...@flnet.com]

On 29 Jan 1997 08:02:57 GMT, dsyn...@aol.com (D Synstel) wrote:

>pardon me mr King, but by this example (see below)
>
>>>>I did not decide what I wanted to do, then went to the
>laws and Bible to find out what I could get away with. I started with
>the law and Bible and have always tried to stay inside their
>boundaries. <<<
>
>are you saying that if slavery and apartied were still legal, then you
>would advocate them?

No! You are too far afield here. I clearly said what I DID say - about
fonts. You are refusing to answer the issues at hand. I understand
that attacking straw man arguments and chasing rabbits is safest for
your position. But, this thread is about the moral issues concerning a
few designers' insistance on the exclusivity of their designs. Please
keep up!

>There are many laws on the books that are wrong and most people understand
>this, only those with truly black hearts try to profit from this kind of
>injustice.

You're making inferences with your "black hearts " reference. BUT YOU
STILL HAVEN'T ADDRESSED A SINGLE ISSUE!

It won't go away.

[Donald A. Hosek]

In article <32f10446....@news.packet.net>, <pk...@flnet.com> wrote:
[to a different Don]

>You know, Don, an EDUCATED concience is a valuable thing! Your
>concience should prick you concerning a moral code that is generally
>accepted by your society. I have asked others, with no response. So,
>I'll ask you too. What is the basis for your belief that each designer
>should morally have exclusive rights to their fonts? Please cite
>generally accepted moral authorities. Please also tell why the moral
>authorities that I cited should be disregarded and your standards
>adopted by society as a whole, instead?

My moral authorities, as a Catholic, are the Bible and holy
Tradition. These sources teach such things as "the worker is worthy of
his hire" and that it is wrong to withhold payment from workers for
the work that they do. In 1892 (give or take a year) Pope Leo XIII
wrote an encyclical, widely available, and not very long, entitled
"Rerum Novarum" (commonly referred to in English as "On the Condition
of the Working Classes") which synthesized much of this teaching into
a concise form. To summarize, it is a grave moral wrong to unjustly
exploit the work of others. This teaching has not been contradicted in
the following hundred years. In fact, it has been strengthened by
periodical encyclicals by Leo's successors including two by the
current pontiff, John Paul II.

Now the question is whether you are unjustly exploiting the work of
others. In the teaching of the Catholic Church, workers are given the
right (yes, RIGHT, not PRIVILEDGE, but RIGHT) to a fair living
wage. You have declared openly that you are not paying the designers
for their work. And by effectively giving away the fruits of their
labor you not only deny them compensation from those sales, but you
damage their ability to make sales through those channels which would
pay them for their labors. Since Justice can be defined as giving
people what they deserve, I would argue then, that your actions are in
fact unjust.

The excuse of "it's legal" is unsatisfactory on moral grounds. Moral
standards are universal and are not bound by mere legal
definitions. The fact that the law as regards to the protection of
typeface design varies from one country to the next is sufficient to
remove it as any sort of moral guide on the subject.

You may equivocate all that you like, but you are appropriating the
work of others without compensation or permission and that is a moral
wrong in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

-dh

--
Don Hosek dho...@quixote.com Quixote Digital Typography
909-621-1291 fax: 909-625-1342 orders: 800-810-3311
For information about SERIF: THE MAGAZINE OF TYPE & TYPOGRAPHY,
http://www.quixote.com/serif/ or mail serif...@quixote.com

[pk...@flnet.com]

On 29 Jan 1997 23:41:41 -0500, agi...@asimov.oit.umass.edu (Andre G
Isaak) wrote:

>
>> On 26 Jan 1997 11:43:17 -0500, agi...@asimov.oit.umass.edu (Andre G
>> Isaak) wrote:
>>

> In your various 'Font
>Foundry Myth' posts you have strewn together a divers collection of
>facts without exhibiting any comprehension of those facts at all. At
>this point, I am not even convinced that you could perform to my
>satisfaction on a Turing Test, let alone an IQ test.

I clearly state my comprehension of the relevant facts as a header to
each quote, as you could see if you had read the post. John, for
reasons of his own, was persisting in asking a question that I had
clearly answered, playing intentionally stupid. I merely called him on
it. I believe that John knows that I don't think he is mentally
deficient. But, he persisted in personal attacks that continued during
my (almost) 30 day absence from comp.fonts . He had shown that he was
not merely doing it in direct response to my posts, but had taken on a
vendetta. You sir, did not call him on it, nor did any of your
friends.

When I posted, he began to try for a rhetorical advantage, in
collusion with several of his friends, maintaining that I had not
answered the question when I clearly had.

I began a new thread with each Myth, and laid down a few parameters. I
a highhanded manner, he discarded my parameters and tried to lay down
his own as if the entire public comp.fonts belonged to him. At the
same time he refused to respond to a single one of my assertions on
the merits, choosing to continue his personal attacks on my character.

>The point which I was trying to make to you was that your postings in
>this group are becoming highly unwelcome, not only I suspect to me, but
>to the majority of other readers, because your posts are growing in
>length without adding any new content, apart from some novel attempts at
>philosophising and theologising.

I think you are wrong. If they are unwelcome to you, then do not
download them and they will not trouble you, since you cannot seem to
comprehend the clearly stated preface to each quote anyway. Comp.fonts
is hardly a monolithic group, having only fonts in common. It is more
likely than not that people who have radically diverse opinions from
you love fonts as well. Most people recognize that there are more
people who are not like them than there are people who are like them.

There is subtantial new content in each of my myth postings as you
will admit if you are not irretrievably biased. You should also admit
that I was asked to support my basis for morality. I cannot believe
you expected me to do so without referring to theology and philosophy.
Indeed no civilized man could make a defense of his life without
reference to both!

>You continue to cut and paste from earlier posts arguments which failed
>to convince anyone the first time round. Why do you believe, then, that
>repetition will strengthen your position?

Au contraire! LOTS of people were convinced the first time around!
Questions continued to pour in as did private email compliments from
people who chose not to be roasted on comp.fonts by the "I am a font
protectionist, this is MY forum and I take no prisoners" group. I am
encouraged by the amount of private openness when every attempt has
been made through intimidation to make theis a "politically correct"
group.

If you will check, I have been asked the same exact question over 15
times by your cut-and-paste friends for rhetorical effect even though
the answer was clearly given. Must I say it a new way each time - and
they not?

>
>Also, we are all suitably impressed with your skills at circumlocution,
>but it would be nice to occassionally get a direct answer to a question
>from you.

I am not the one beating around the bush, Buddy! You and your friends
have about 60 questions worth of explaining to do! The questions are
there and we are all waiting. This "you disagree with me so you should
leave" stuff is all garbage. Nobody is leaving. Get used to it! Answer
the questions!

>Thus, all I am asking is that if you want to continue to argue your
>position in this group, please at least have the courtesy of treating
>this as a dialogue rather than a very repetitive monologue, which is
>what you have been doing up until now. Otherwise, I urge you to take my
>original advice and simply leave.

A dialogue is good! When can we start? I thought that starting a
thread did that. I asked questions to start. Please answer them. If
they are not clear, please state which part you do not understand and
I will restate it for you. Then, you need to answer!

>What you posted hardly contituted a 'complete body of research' on
>ethics. You made some random citations from Plato's political writings
>and from Biblical sources and attempted to twist these to your
>advantage.

Nope! It won't wash. If they were "random" they wouldn't all relate to
the issues at hand. If they are relevant and truly express the view of
the author, then you have an obligation to answer them or move on.

If I twisted anything, you must prove it. We all know that you have
shown your biases time and again, so pardon us if we make you prove
your points. It is not "random" or "twisted" just because you don't
like the conclusions!

>I won't comment here on any of your Biblical citations, since I know
>very little about the sources themselves, and am sure that others to
>whom these sources hold more personal significance will address the
>points you raise.
>
>As for your philosophical positions, they were not merely error-ridden.

If you don't accept the scriptures, we can move to other areas. What
DO you define as a moral authority outside yourself that others can
accept as well?

>They were completely naive, as illustrated below
>
>> QUESTION
>> If this logic was applied to everything, anything created, once put
>> into the marketplace, belongs to everybody. Wouldn’t there be little
>> reason to compensate the inventor or designer? Since there would be no
>> hope of compensation, there would be little reason for any inventor or
>> designer to introduce their work into the marketplace, wouldn’t
>> creativity would be stifled, and society as a whole would suffer the
>> loss?
>>
>> ANSWER
>> Of course this is not true! This is known in logic as the fallacy
>> "reducto ad absurdam" (taking a thing to the point of absurdity to
>> belittle the underlying truth) This is as ridiculous as saying "You
>> want to be a Doctor? What if everybody in the world was a doctor?"
>
>Note the misuse of the term 'reductio ad absurdum' here. Reductio ad
>absurdum is not a type of fallacy. It is a form of argumentation and a
>perfectly valid one. The term you want is 'slippery slope', which is
>misapplied to this little scenario anyways.

Nope! I meant what I said! YOU applied slippery slope as a straw man

argument and then knocked it down! "Reducto ad absurdam" IS a type of
logical fallacy. It can be found in Jevons' classic work "Elementary
Lessons in Logic" on the chapter on "Reductions of the Imperfect
Syllogism" as well as in the dictionary in the back. If you think it

is a valid form of argumentation, I can see we're all in for a rough
month!

>The reason I highlight this little mistake, which is representative of
>your entire post, is simply to point out the fact that little or no
>understanding was expended in your 'research'.

I'll wait for your apology any tome now. If you think things are
getting a little out of hand, well I do too! You speak about things
you don't understand as if you were an expert and then belittle the
research of others. What can make you so biased that you would inflate
yourself this much to a crowd?

>This error is something
>so trivial that anyone who had taken (and paid attention during) a first
>year college philosophy course would not have made it.

I made an "A" in my 4th year college course in logic. You insult
others without cause for effect in the same post where you choose to
be critical of anything short of dialogue!

>The remainder of
>your post represents a similar attempt to exploit every little bit of
>philosophical trivia that you happen to be aware of, however dimly, in
>order to show how much 'research' was conducted. You succeed, however,
>only in doing the opposite.

Again, let me remind you, you have no idea what I am aware of! Your
pathetic attempts to undercut the work done only show how much trouble
you have answering the valid questions it raises!

>You cannot expect to glean an understanding of ethics from a single
>essay on Plato taken from Encyclopaedia Brittanica (or whatever your
>source was). To go through all of your errors would involve more time or
>space than I am willing to devote to this, but I will make a few
>remarks.

Buddy, I have had many college courses on ethics and philosophy. I do
not own an Encyclopedia. But, I can read Greek well enough to read
authors in the original. The New Testament that I use almost daily is
in the original Greek including the critical commentary. (and has been
my primary NT for the last 20 years). I probably own more books than
you have pages in your set of encyclopedias! I suggest if you can't
run with the big dogs that you stay on the front porch! So, get back
to the questions at hand!

>First, The Republic is a dialogue on political philosophy, and as such,
>is rather intimately connected to the time and place of its writing. The
>social structure of Athens in the 4th Century BC diverges enough from
>the modern world that you cannot expect it to be applicable to the here
>and now even if your interpretation of it were valid.

Are you stating that morality cannot be expected to be universally
applicable or that morality is not an absolute? This is incredible,
folks! If he will answer, you can say that you heard it right here!

He's really twisting and turning to get off the skewer on this one!

>While it is true
>that Plato has had a lasting impact on Western Philosophy, I doubt very
>much that you would find any modern philosophers looking to Plato for a
>theory of political justice. Even in his own time, he was hardly
>universally accepted.

Of course not! They KILLED Socrates. You WOULD however, find modern
moralists who, (if they find the Bible unsatisfactory as a moral
guide) look to philosophers like him when studying where the (almost)
universally accepted morality of the relationship of government to
citizen was formed.

>Since, however, you seem bent on taking Plato to be representative of
>all Western Philosophy, may I suggest the following exercise for you.
>Plato wrote a short little dialogue called the Euthyphro very early in
>his career. I suggest that you get a hold of this dialogue, and read it
>with the following modifications: Replace every occurrence of the word
>'god' with the word 'government'. Alternately, replace every occurrence
>of the word 'god' with 'law' or 'legal system'.

Well, that's a stretch! I find that morally repugnant to consider! I
Consider people who try to place government in the role of God to be
very immoral by my standards! You may recognize the concept in, "Give
to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

The ethics of our relationship with God are quite different than our
relationship with any government!

>Plato's original
>argument will remain valid with these minor adjustments, and may help to
>show you why the question of the ethicality of your actions remains
>completely independent of the legality of those actions, which thus far
>is all you have really addressed.

If you want to make an argument based on material not readilly
available to all, then please post your cites! Too many times (even in
this post) you have pontificated about stuff where you had absolutely
no idea what you were talking about. I disagree with you in general on
this book of Euthyphro. If you are going to make specific arguments,
you must post for all. Vague recollections will not substitute for
research!

I have clearly shown the ethical validity of the government in taking
exclusivity in many areas and passing economic rights along to
citizens through discussions of the moral correctness of these actions
BEFORE the governments in question were ever formed. I have also shown
the moral right of citizens who recieve such largesse from the
government as well as the moral wrong of people who try to steal from
the public what the government has given them.

Since I did this in the context of moral discussion - apart from
actual law, I have answered my critics and raised questions about
their own morality. So, I have clearly addressed much more than you
say!

>The sad fact is that your error-prone treatment of philosophy mirrors in
>many ways your treatment of fonts and font technology. The former can,
>in some sense, be forgiven, since as a font thief^H^H^H^H^Hreseller you
>are not responsible for this area. The latter, however, is another can
>of worms...

All this comes from a man who has not posted A SINGLE LINE OF HIS OWN
RESEARCH! Sir, you define hubris! You try on half-baked theories with
no underlying support. You falsely criticize the well done research of
others. You are clearly caught in many errors of fact. You have
neither checked my work nor attempted to do any of your own. And you
crawl up on the web to tell me how this group of people would prefer
your ilk to my presence!

>Finally, I would like to make one last point, which is that you have on
>numerous occassions dismissed the various designers with whom you have
>been arguing in this and related threads on the grounds that they are
>merely attempting to protect their own financial interests.

I have not tried to dismiss them thus. Several have made the point
that I have a financial interest, yet have been unwilling to admit the
same about themselves. Some have taken a page from your book and asked
men not to even BE on comp.fonts because I derive income from fonts.
Of course this is ridiculous! I merely want the playing field to be
level.

>You have said on several occassions that you do value type. However, the
>extent to which you belittle the creative expenditures of others makes
>it very difficult for me to believe this.

Mr. Isaak, I do not belittle their "creative expenditures". I
encourage them and admire them. I do not believe that gives them the
moral or legal right to royalties from every design when so much of
their work was clearly derived from our ancestors.

> You have discussed aspects of
>font creation in ways which make it very clear to me that you have never
>personally been involved in font design.

Again, you are talking like a crazy man about things where you know
absolutely nothing!

>Given this, it is difficult for
>me to fathom how you can possibly make claims about which rights are and
>are not due to the designer of a typeface.

While I disagree with your idea of my involvement in the type
industry, is your argument;

that only musicians should regulate musicians? only butchers should
regulate butchers?

You think that self-regulation is best, has ever worked?

That nobody who has not designed a font has any right to apply broad
legal and moral principles to anybody in the type industry?

Do only type designers know the law concerning typeface and nobody
else?

Am I on candid camera? We need to have a RATIONAL dialogue, based on
commonly accepted principles. You are getting so far afield with your
ideas that I don't even know if this can ever happen.

My advice;

1) Don't presume to know my motives, or educational level. You are so
biased, you are continually insulting.

2) Don't make this about me. Keep it on the issues of the thread.

3) Clearly address the issues. If they are not clear, quote the
unclear part, I'll clarify it. You cannot duck your obligation to
answer the issues so easily.

4) Don't posture. Stand only on what you know. If you don't you'll be
called on it.

5) Do your own research! Post it for all to read! I am not your
graduate assistant.

6) Conceed that which you agree with. I will do the same.

7) I would gladly welcome the chance to have a civil discourse with
all personal elements taken out. I respond that way to every post
which does not contain personal attacks.

[Stephan Heilmayr]

In article <heilmayr-ya023680...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
I (Stephan Heilmayr) wrote:

> Well, I've never read Jevons' "classic" work [...], but I do know
> that Reductio ad Absurdum is a valid form of logical inference.

Just a quick followup to myself...

I checked a few of my references, and though (not surprisingly) none of
them listed Reductio Ad Absurdum as a fallacy, I did find a reference to a
fallacy that was called "improper Reductio Ad Absurdum". It goes like
this:

"From the falsity of the conclusion, deduce the falsity of all of the
premises."

The _real_ Reductio Ad Absurdum goes like this:

"From the falsity of the conclusion, deduce the falsity of (at least) one
of the premises."

The first one is invalid, but the second one very definitely _is_ valid.
If Jevons says otherwise, he's just plain wrong.

-- Klaus (heil...@math.berkeley.edu)

[D Synstel]

>>>1) Don't presume to know my motives, or educational level. You are so
biased, you are continually insulting.<<<

I think it was you who broke your own rule just two days ago when you
accused me of being more willing to "die" than to think.

Don Synstelien
www.synfonts.com

[D Synstel]

>>>>You're making inferences with your "black hearts " reference. BUT YOU
STILL HAVEN'T ADDRESSED A SINGLE ISSUE!<<<<

You still haven't answered any questions asked of you in a manner that
satisfied anyone.

Or to put it in another way...

If so many people are having trouble understanding your answers, isn't it
possible that you need to state them in a different way?

Don Synstelien
www.synfonts.com

[pk...@flnet.com]

On 30 Jan 1997 14:22:10 -0700, qui...@primenet.com (Donald A. Hosek)
wrote:

>
>Now the question is whether you are unjustly exploiting the work of
>others. In the teaching of the Catholic Church, workers are given the
>right (yes, RIGHT, not PRIVILEDGE, but RIGHT) to a fair living
>wage. You have declared openly that you are not paying the designers
>for their work. And by effectively giving away the fruits of their
>labor you not only deny them compensation from those sales, but you
>damage their ability to make sales through those channels which would
>pay them for their labors. Since Justice can be defined as giving
>people what they deserve, I would argue then, that your actions are in
>fact unjust.
>
>The excuse of "it's legal" is unsatisfactory on moral grounds. Moral
>standards are universal and are not bound by mere legal
>definitions. The fact that the law as regards to the protection of
>typeface design varies from one country to the next is sufficient to
>remove it as any sort of moral guide on the subject.

Don, you miss the point that I made at the beginning of the myth post.

1) The government is NOT taking the design and all it's revenue away
from the designer. That is a bogus, straw man argument.

2) Also, the Catholic Church DOES support the moral rights of
governments to take away SOME of those fruits of a worker's labor and
use them for the public good.

You have raised up a false argument here! Since we have now discovered
the actual position of the Catholic Church and you have said, "Moral

standards are universal and are not bound by mere legal definitions. "

I am sure that now you will agree with me.

>
>You may equivocate all that you like, but you are appropriating the
>work of others without compensation or permission and that is a moral
>wrong in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

As I have stated over and over (and as you have chosen to ignore
because it is "inconvenient" to your position) THE GOVERNMENT is the
one who does the taking - not a person. This makes a big moral
difference. What is moral for a government may not be moral for a
person. You are deliberately confusing this simple, easily understood
principle so you can retain an illusionary argumentative advantage.

[Stephan Heilmayr]

In article <32f265cc...@news.packet.net>,
pk...@flnet.com wrote:

> I've
> >just looked up the title on line, and it looks like the book dates from
> >1908 (and that's for the new revised edition). Things have changed
> > quite a bit since then...
> >

> Not in logic!

I beg to differ. This was before the publication of Russell and
Whitehead's "Principia Mathematica," perhaps the most influential work in
modern logic. Basically, all of modern formal logic happened after that.
Yes, Frege was before that, but his works didn't really have any
significant influence until after Russel and Whietehead "discovered" him.
It may surprise you to hear that hardly anyone uses the old theory of
syllogisms any more. For a standard modern treatment, have a look at
Benson Mates' "Elementary Logic."

-- Klaus (heil...@math.berkeley.edu)

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Thu, 30 Jan 1997 16:31:23 -0800, heil...@math.berkeley.edu
(Stephan Heilmayr) wrote:

>In article <32f0f5ce....@news.packet.net>, pk...@flnet.com wrote:
>

>> Why don't YOU read them, extract any parts that YOU think deal with
>> these issues and post them yourself! I have already made my points. In
>> being as thorough as I was, I have been blasted. My points are made.
>
>You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of philosophical
>argumentation. It's not at all like books of laws, where you just cite the
>relevant portions. Any serious philosophical work contains sustained
>argumentation that can't just be summed up in little sound bites.

Which is why 3 separate times in the last week I refused to sound bite
it for people. Also why my post is so long. If you are going to quote
relevant portions, you need to quote enough context that folks can
know what is going on. Thank you for defending the length and nature
of my post.

What you seem to be missing is that this can't be like a discussion
between two old musicians, where one says, "Bach!" and the other one
says, "Ah yes, Bach!" and the same melodies go playing through their
heads. This is a debate "listened" to by thousands. You have an
obligation to make your point as clearly as possible - for them. Ideas
- no matter how complicated - can be expressed by language. So, get
out your keyboard .....

I felt daunted, as you do, when some people who didn't really seem to
care very much asked me for the moral basis I posted. It took 2 weeks
- and another 3 weeks of checking. Still, I made my points with
relevant cites (yes, I did cut out about 20 pages of philosophical
redundancy - as you will have to). If your philosophers make such
ephemeral statements that it cannot be related to the issue, then you
are sending us on a wild goose chase. If the points can be made,
cited, and summarized, then you do it! They are your arguments. You
say you are already familiar with their work. Let us now see your
work! Murphy once said, "Nothing is impossible to the one who does not
have to do it" If your side's point CAN be made, it is your job!

You know that some philosophers are interested in the questions more
than ever discovering answers. What comp.fonts is looking for is a
little reality from you here - not how hard it is!

>You were the one who had claimed to examine the ethics of what you're doing
>by going to major philosophical works about ethics. Anyone with even a
>passing acquaintance with the field of ethics can see that you haven't done
>so. Have a look at a reading list for any philosophy course in ethics (or
>rather, any such course that uses original works rather than a textbook).
>You'll be almost certain to find Aristotle, Kant, and at least one of the
>utilitarians (like Mill) on there. On the other hand, you might find Plato
>or Marx on a few such reading lists, but probably not on most of them. If
>you're going to look at the philosophical issues involved, you need to have
>at least a nodding acquaintance with the material -- at least enough to
>know what works are relevant. Since you were the one who claimed to be
>discussing ethics, it's up to you to show that you know something about it.

I did! You are the one talking in generalities. I set forth a simple
premise. Only unacceptable anarchist philosophies disagree with the
moral right of governments to take PART (exclusivity only) of the
production of their citizens and distribute it for the public good.
For all your looking down your nose at other's education, you still
have not answered this!

>> The other side HAS NOT ANSWERED ONE single question using any
>> generally accepted authority. THis is outrageous that the rest of you
>> would let them get away with this!
>
>Philosophy is not based on authority. It is based on argumentation. You
>seem to have a lot of trouble with that idea.

I Do understand that! Ultimately each person has a life's
"philosophy". Unfortunately, most of them have not been well thought
through, and just won't work. Rather than re-invent the wheel, many
turn to other, deeper thinkers, who have asked the hard questions in
years gone bye. They take their arguments as a generally accepted
BASIS (only) for how we should then live. The argumentation of
Socrates seems superior to that of Jim Cape. Your argumentation, on
the other hand, is non-existant!

>> All they have been inclined to do so far is to merely attack an
>> individual. Just because you know the names of a few books doesn't
>> prove a thing! You must make a logical refutation of 60+ arguments,
>> supporting it with research. So, go get busy!
>
>"60+ arguments"? Perhaps you could give us a numbered list...

Nope! They are there. Dig in! If you don't understand something, let
me know.

>And what's this about making a logical refutation and supporting it with
>research? Perhaps you're a bit unclear on the concept of a logical
>refutation?

You have just seen the most complete position ever put on comp.fonts
for either side of the issue. Is your position that until the form of
an argument is presented in such a way to suit YOU, that the positions
are automatically wrong. Stop nit-picking and go to work! Of course,
we'll expect flawless form from you (hard when you've got such an
illogical position).

[Preston43]

May I politely suggest that we ALL stop responding to "Rev" King? All we
are doing to providing him a forum--essentially, free advertising space.

Let's make an effort NOT to respond to any of his posts.

Preston

[Donald A. Hosek]

In article <32f26374...@news.packet.net>, <pk...@flnet.com> wrote:
>On 30 Jan 1997 14:22:10 -0700, qui...@primenet.com (Donald A. Hosek)
>wrote:

>>Now the question is whether you are unjustly exploiting the work of
>>others. In the teaching of the Catholic Church, workers are given the
>>right (yes, RIGHT, not PRIVILEDGE, but RIGHT) to a fair living
>>wage. You have declared openly that you are not paying the designers
>>for their work. And by effectively giving away the fruits of their
>>labor you not only deny them compensation from those sales, but you
>>damage their ability to make sales through those channels which would
>>pay them for their labors. Since Justice can be defined as giving
>>people what they deserve, I would argue then, that your actions are in
>>fact unjust.

>>The excuse of "it's legal" is unsatisfactory on moral grounds. Moral
>>standards are universal and are not bound by mere legal
>>definitions. The fact that the law as regards to the protection of
>>typeface design varies from one country to the next is sufficient to
>>remove it as any sort of moral guide on the subject.

>Don, you miss the point that I made at the beginning of the myth post.

You miss the point that I am making about YOUR actions.

>1) The government is NOT taking the design and all it's revenue away
>from the designer. That is a bogus, straw man argument.

I said nothing about the actions of the government. (Straw man? I
wonder whose?)

I said that YOU are taking the designs of others, making money off of
them without compensating the designer. At the same time you are
damaging the ability of the designer to make money off of his or her
work. This is the action that I assert to be immoral and unjust.

>2) Also, the Catholic Church DOES support the moral rights of
>governments to take away SOME of those fruits of a worker's labor and
>use them for the public good.

I never claimed otherwise. The Catholic Church DOES strongly condemn
the exploitation of workers by private individuals or
corporations. THAT is the sin of which you are guilty.

>You have raised up a false argument here! Since we have now discovered
>the actual position of the Catholic Church and you have said, "Moral
>standards are universal and are not bound by mere legal definitions. "
>I am sure that now you will agree with me.

No, you have engaged in non sequiturs. You have grossly misrepresented
my arguments, presumably because you know that what you are doing is
morally indefensible and the only way to deal with the claims that you
are acting in an immoral and unjust fashion is to ignore the charges,
raise straw man replies and hide behind legalism.

It is people like you who allow non-Christians to justify their
prejudices against the word of God.

>>You may equivocate all that you like, but you are appropriating the
>>work of others without compensation or permission and that is a moral
>>wrong in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

>As I have stated over and over (and as you have chosen to ignore
>because it is "inconvenient" to your position) THE GOVERNMENT is the
>one who does the taking - not a person. This makes a big moral
>difference. What is moral for a government may not be moral for a
>person. You are deliberately confusing this simple, easily understood
>principle so you can retain an illusionary argumentative advantage.

The government is taking nothing. YOU are exploiting the work of
others. The lack of legal protection for typeface designs does not
change that.

-dh

--
Don Hosek dho...@quixote.com Quixote Digital Typography

708-788-1501 fax: 708-788-1530 orders: 800-810-3311

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Thu, 30 Jan 1997 16:46:13 -0800, heil...@math.berkeley.edu
(Stephan Heilmayr) wrote:

>
>Well, I've never read Jevons' "classic" work (in fact, I've never even
>heard of it, despite having studied logic for many years), but I do know
>that Reductio ad Absurdum is a valid form of logical inference. Perhaps

>Jevons has defined "Reducto ad absurdam" to be something different. I've

>just looked up the title on line, and it looks like the book dates from
>1908 (and that's for the new revised edition). Things have changed quite a
>bit since then...
>
Not in logic!

Paul King - President, Southern Software, Inc. (pk...@flnet.com)

[pk...@flnet.com]

On 31 Jan 1997 08:19:11 GMT, dsyn...@aol.com (D Synstel) wrote:

>>>>1) Don't presume to know my motives, or educational level. You are so
>biased, you are continually insulting.<<<
>

>I think it was you who broke your own rule just two days ago when you
>accused me of being more willing to "die" than to think.

So then, Don, are you prepared to get to the task at hand, think about
and answer the issues?

Treat me civilly in your posts and you may then expect to be treated
the same. Stay on the issues. Don't chase rabbits. Answer the
questions.Stop making insulting remarks to others.

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Wed, 29 Jan 1997 07:58:00 GMT, f.cha...@atlantel.fr (Francis
CHARTIER) wrote:

>A lot of legal bullshit to hide a few simple facts..
>
>A crook is a crook.
>
>Strict adherence to legal bullshit can't compensate lack of ethics.
>
>How do you spell parasite ?

A crook is defined by legal or moral authorities. You are neither!
Post your rationale for saying so or be quiet and stop showing your
ignorance. All these authorities were posted for you, but you don't
read them, you just get angry!

My daddy always said, "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It doesn't
work. And it annoys the pig!"

>*------------------------------------------------------*
>| Francis Chartier f.cha...@atlantel.fr |
>| Quid Novi ? http://www.enfrance.com/quid-novi |
>*------------------------------------------------------*
>| * PAO * Pre-Presse * Photogravure * |
>*------------------------------------------------------*

Six line sig - mine is six! Bet NOBODY gets on you about it either!

[Stephan Heilmayr]

In article <32f10476....@news.packet.net>, pk...@flnet.com wrote:

> Nope! I meant what I said! YOU applied slippery slope as a straw man
> argument and then knocked it down! "Reducto ad absurdam" IS a type of
> logical fallacy. It can be found in Jevons' classic work "Elementary
> Lessons in Logic" on the chapter on "Reductions of the Imperfect
> Syllogism" as well as in the dictionary in the back.

Well, I just had to go and look up this archaic work you're referring to.
In the dictionary in back (actually, it's more like an annotated index), it
says this about Reductio ad Absurdum:

"Reductio ad absurdum or ad impossibile: An indirect demonstration founded
upon the impossibility of a contradictory supposition."

Hmm, doesn't sound like a fallacy to me. In the chapter "Reduction of the
Imperfect Figures of the Syllogism," he talks about reductio ad absurdum,
which he refers to as "indirect reduction," about which he says(on p. 149):

"This process consists in supposing the conclusion of the syllogism to be
false, and its contradictory therefore true, when a new syllogism can
easily be constructed which leads to a conclusion contradictory to one of
the original premises. Now it is absurd in logic to call in question the
truth of our own premises, for the very purpose of argument or syllogism is
to deduce a conclusion which will be true *when* *the* *premises* *are*
*true*. [...] therefore a conclusion which requires the falsity of one of
our premises is altogether absurd."

Admittedly, the prose is somewhat opaque, but what he's saying is that
reductio ad absurdum is a valid form of inference.

Incidentally, looking at a book like this makes it clear why logic didn't
really get very far before Boole, Frege, and Russell. It's just a
byzantine jumble of weird forms with bizarre names, with no systematic
underpinnings. This sort of thing is really just a historical curiosity.

-- Klaus (heil...@math.berkeley.edu)

[Tiro TypeWorks]

pk...@flnet.com wrote:

>I did! You are the one talking in generalities. I set forth a simple
>premise. Only unacceptable anarchist philosophies disagree with the
>moral right of governments to take PART (exclusivity only) of the
>production of their citizens and distribute it for the public good.

On what grounds are anarchist philosophies 'unacceptable'? This is not
a challenge; I'm just curious why you say this. Some anarchist
philosophy is as ancient as Plato, and a good deal of it is seriously
considered within the canon of western philosophy. When Bertrand
Russell wrote his study of western political philosophies, he devoted
just as many pages and serious consideration to anarchism as to the
others.

John Hudson, Type Director

Tiro TypeWorks
Vancouver, BC
ti...@tiro.com
http://www.tiro.com

[Tiro TypeWorks]

pk...@flnet.com wrote:

>You have just seen the most complete position ever put on comp.fonts
>for either side of the issue.

I'm sorry, but I have to take issue with that. What we have just seen
is the longest position ever put on comp.fonts, on any issue. Length
does not, in itself imply completeness. Indeed, many complete things
are very small and simple. The following is complete:

Any amount of human labour is a mirror of that original, divine labour
to which we all owe our existence; as such, labour is worthy of a
special respect, and those who have laboured are due the rewards of
their labour, just as God is due all reward and sacrifice, and no man
has a right to take from or diminish that reward.

[Tiro TypeWorks]

pk...@flnet.com wrote:

>2) Also, the Catholic Church DOES support the moral rights of
>governments to take away SOME of those fruits of a worker's labor and
>use them for the public good.

But that is not what is at issue here. Frankly, if an individual
member of the public finds it worthwhile to go to the trouble of
copying one of my type designs, rather than spending a little money to
buy a font from me, and if that member of the public wants to use this
copy for his or her own private purposes, I'm hardly likely to try to
stop them, even if the law permitted me to do so. All I ask is that
they try to do a good job and not to disgrace my work by making a
shoddy version of it. If that were all that were implied and permitted
by your government's appropriation of my work for the public good, I
really wouldn't have a problem with it.

What I have a problem with is an opportunist such as yourself making
use of your government's efforts for the public good to line your own
pockets, to the detriment of type designers, the health of the
industry that supports type designers and the future public good which
comes from the proliferation of new designs in the marketplace.

Your government and your Copyright Office, have traditionally refused
copyright protection to type design in order -- so they say -- to
ensure that US citizens maintain the freedom to make use of any
rendition of the alphabet they desire to use. This freedom can be
amply exercised without your self-serving assistance, and I do not
believe it was ever the intention of your government that its ruling
in this matter should justify private gain from the uncompensated work
of others.

[Andre G Isaak]

In article <32f10446....@news.packet.net>, <pk...@flnet.com> wrote:
>

>While my IQ can't boil water, it is higher than yours - so what's your

I assume we're talking Celsius here. Your post didn't specify which units
of measurement were being employed.

[Clive Bruton/Typonaut]

In article <pNL3O-g.y...@delphi.com>,
W Marshall <ywmar...@delphi.com> wrote:

>When will you understand the key wisdom that letterforms
>are not legally protected?

Please rely on facts in your posts, not your opinions boosted by the
misinformation of King et al. Type design is widely protected throughout
the world (is everyone else wrong?). US Patent law *does* allow for the
protection of type design under Design Patent.

So you see your wisdom is nothing but the reflected opinions of someone
bordering on insanity.

-- Clive

[Clive Bruton/Typonaut]

In article <32ecfa4b...@news.packet.net>,
pk...@flnet.com wrote:

>I wish that there was a minimum IQ standard for response in certain
>threads!

If there were thay would probably ban the use of the exclamation mark, and
then where would you be?

>I spent multiple pages clearly answering that specific
>question! My question to you is now, "With all the evidence presented
>to show the morality of my actions and the immorality of your claims,
>how can you justify continuing in your position?" Please cite
>recognized authorities!

I have to agree with John, I find your verbosity stunning, what you have
compiled is also stunning. But don't believe that it equates to "research",
you have merely warped a considerable range of sources (taking very small
samples, where the body of the work disagrees with your point) to your
point of view.

As far as authorities go, the ultimate authority in my moral code is me, I
have spent 32 years researching this and come to the conclusion that you
are incorrect. My justification for this is that I have never fallen foul
of the law and cannot recall ever being called a liar, cheat or parasite,
something that you cannot match.

-- Clive

[Clive Bruton/Typonaut]

In article <19970131223...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
pres...@aol.com (Preston43) wrote:

You know, that is a remarkably good idea, but would that stop him posting?

I'm sure many of those debating against King are very tired of the chase,
but to leave his remarks unchallenged almost validates them, and we
certainly cannot have that.

Were he a drunk in a bar, then the options would be easier, however he has
taken to mass media, preaching to the Net. He must be shown to be the
charlatan and parasite that he surely is.

-- Clive

[Clive Bruton/Typonaut]

In article <32ed0836...@news.packet.net>,
pk...@flnet.com wrote:

>That post is accurate, descriptive of the thoughts of the day,
>relevant to the questions asked on comp.fonts. It is also the most
>complete body of research posted to date on the ethics of this issue.

Dearest Paul,

The only thoughts described therein are yours, and are wholly
misrepresentations, as virtually everything you have posted to this group.

I find it very difficult to understand how you can abuse Christianity in
such a way, perhaps we could have a second opinion on your interpretations,
the Pope or the Arch Bishop of Canterbury? One can well understand the
rejection of the Church by many people given your actions as one of its
representatives.

As your whole argument now seems to be that you are morally right perhaps
you should argue your case with your peers on a .religion group, as I think
it is obvious that the typophiles here have little understanding of your
argument.

In other words, as many have indicated, it's time for you to move on.

-- Clive

[Clive Bruton/Typonaut]

In article <5cmqi8$l...@tesla.netline.net>,
ki...@netline.net (Richard J. Kinch) wrote:

>My opinion is that utilitarian designs (typefaces, auto bodies, wrench
>handles) are a different class of work from ordinary works of authorship
>(books, music, the fine arts). The latter serve no utilitarian purpose in
>themselves, they serve as abstractions only and thereby become a higher forms
>of intellectual property. By this I don't mean that, say, a medical textbook
>isn't of great utility, but rather that you don't literally swallow the book
>as medicine or cut flesh with it for surgical utility.

But, you don't need a particular typeface in order to understand the text,
that is an artistic decision on the part of the designer. Therefore it is
very easy to separate the functional aspect of type from the design.

Surely you can see the redundancy of type design given a purely utilitarian
viewpoint? And if it is redundant it can only be an artistic endeavour.

>
>A cookbook on cake decorating deserves copyright, while a pretty pattern for
>decorated cakes doesn't, because the primary purpose of the icing is to be
>eaten. The artistry or craftmanship is secondary.

I think that in this case your analogy doesn't make sense, the cake is for
eating, the decoration is additional to that, it doesn't make the cake
taste any different than if the icing were plain. The decoration is for the
eye, not the palette.

>I see grave problems. Identifying the truly original versus infringing
>versus minimal designs seems an impossible task for a jury. It's not like
>music where they play two songs and see if they sound alike.

Surely it's exactly like that? Here's face "A", does this look like face
"B"? The question is a straight-forward as that, the argument that goes on
around that decision obviously is not, but neither would it be in an
infringement of music copyright.

-- Clive

[Andre G Isaak]

on Sat Feb 1 19:02:15 EST 1997 pk...@flnet.com wrote:

> Nope! I meant what I said! YOU applied slippery slope as a straw man
> argument and then knocked it down! "Reducto ad absurdam" IS a type of
> logical fallacy. It can be found in Jevons' classic work "Elementary
> Lessons in Logic" on the chapter on "Reductions of the Imperfect
> Syllogism" as well as in the dictionary in the back. If you think it
> is a valid form of argumentation, I can see we're all in for a rough
> month!
>

> I'll wait for your apology any tome now. If you think things are
> getting a little out of hand, well I do too! You speak about things
> you don't understand as if you were an expert and then belittle the
> research of others. What can make you so biased that you would inflate
> yourself this much to a crowd?

_Reductio ad Absurdum_ is a form of argumentation in which, to show the
validity of an argument, one assumes the negation of the conclusion to
be true, and then demonstrates that a contradiction will necessarily
follow. I grabbed three logic texts, more or less at random, and they
all seem to share my interpretation (if it matters, the texts were
Richard Jeffrey's _Formal Logic, Its Scope and Limits_ (McGraw Hill,
1981), Quine's _Methods of Logic_ (Holt, 1950), and LTF Gamut's [= van
Benthem, Groenendijk, de Jongh, Stokhof, & Verkuyl] _Logic, Language,
and Meaning_ (U. Chicago, 1991)). I must confess that I did not consult
Jevon's work as I am not familiar with it.

_Reducto ad Absurdum_, on the other hand, does not appear to be
well-formed Latin to me. Gerunds in isolation are typically not in the
dative or ablative. Thus, I find it unlikely that anyone would assign
this name to a logical concept.

Thus, I am not overly clear on what it is that you are waiting for me to
apologise for.

>
> [quoting my earlier post]

>
> >First, The Republic is a dialogue on political philosophy, and as such,
> >is rather intimately connected to the time and place of its writing. The
> >social structure of Athens in the 4th Century BC diverges enough from
> >the modern world that you cannot expect it to be applicable to the here
> >and now even if your interpretation of it were valid.
>
> Are you stating that morality cannot be expected to be universally
> applicable or that morality is not an absolute? This is incredible,
> folks! If he will answer, you can say that you heard it right here!

Ethical relativism is hardly a new concept, so it wouldn't be that
shocking if I were to make such a claim. That wasn't, however, what I
actually meant. _The Republic_ is not a book on ethics, per se. It is a
discussion of Plato's political philosophy, and a system of government
will be bound to the culture in which it arises. Moreover, just because
we might recognise ethical abolutes which are independent of culture
does not mean that authors will not be affected by the cultural mores of
their times, and this must be taken into account in interpreting and
evaluating their arguments.

[responding to my claim that Plato was not accepted by all during his life]

> Of course not! They KILLED Socrates. You WOULD however, find modern
> moralists who, (if they find the Bible unsatisfactory as a moral
> guide) look to philosophers like him when studying where the (almost)
> universally accepted morality of the relationship of government to
> citizen was formed.

Well, actually Socrates killed himself (though I suppose he did have a
certain amount of encouragement from his compatriots). But what does
this have to do with Plato's acceptance? The political outlooks of
Socrates and Plato were rather divergent. Socrates believed in a
democratic system. Plato espoused something more akin to (lowercase)
national socialism (though bear in mind that comparing Plato's system
with any 20th Century political system needs to be approached with
caution), which is not exactly based on a 'universally accepted' view of
'the relationship of government to citzen[s]'. Certainly it is not a
major contributor to the US political system, which is the one most
relevant to this discussion.

I think you are misunderstaning my point. I am not trying to suggest that
the relationship that one's personal relationship with god is even
remotely similar to people's relationship to the government, and I
apologise if I offended by not being sufficiently clear on this point.

In the _Euthyphro_, Plato explores the basis of the concepts of justice
and ethical behaviour. He doesn't really get anywhere in this particular
dialogue, but he does show rather convincingly that moral concepts and
the notion of justice exist independently of god and do not merely
descend from his authority.

I was attempting to suggest that the arguments which he employs can also
be used to show that concepts of justice and morality exist
independently of law and government.

Despite your insistence that you have addressed the ethics of your
activities, most of your discussion has focussed on legal issues. Thus,
I felt that the above excercise might be useful.

Also, your arguments that the government has the right to appropriate
certain things from its citizens (in this case, font design), is
irrelevant to the ethics of your activities, since it is not clear that
the government has ever made such an appropriation.

As I pointed out in a previous post, the US government's refusal to
extend copyright protection to typeface design does not imply that they
are appropriating those designs for the public. It implies that the
relevant legislative bodies are uncertain as to how they can
_practically_ disentangle the creative expenditure which goes into
designing a face from the basic letterforms of the alphabet.

This is a legislative position (and one that I personally believe to be
inadequate), not an ethical position.

> I have clearly shown the ethical validity of the government in taking
> exclusivity in many areas and passing economic rights along to
> citizens through discussions of the moral correctness of these actions
> BEFORE the governments in question were ever formed. I have also shown
> the moral right of citizens who recieve such largesse from the
> government as well as the moral wrong of people who try to steal from
> the public what the government has given them.

You have shown this only by quoting authorities discussing political
systems which are over two thousand years old. This does not constitute
proof in any sense of the word.

> While I disagree with your idea of my involvement in the type
> industry, is your argument;
>
> that only musicians should regulate musicians? only butchers should
> regulate butchers?

My position was merely that regulation of any any area cannot be done
without input from people who are both knowledgable of that area and
have practical experience working in that area, not that it should be
exclusively in the hands of those people.

Andre

[Richard J. Kinch]

Clive Bruton/Typonaut (cl...@typonaut.demon.co.uk) wrote:

: Surely you can see the redundancy of type design given a purely utilitarian

: viewpoint? And if it is redundant it can only be an artistic endeavour.

Of course. I would agree that the stylistic aspects are in addition to the
crude utilitarian letter shape, although a real philosopher might make a hash
of that kind of decomposition and reduction. I think we were just round this
very point with Tiro. But the art or style aspects don't exist apart from
the artless shape recognizable as a letter, so the art is secondary, not
primary, to the work, what the courts have called "mere embellishment".

You're just stating a tautology if you say the artistic aspects are what
makes one typeface to differ from another.

: >A cookbook on cake decorating deserves copyright, while a pretty pattern for

: >decorated cakes doesn't, because the primary purpose of the icing is to be
: >eaten. The artistry or craftmanship is secondary.

: I think that in this case your analogy doesn't make sense, the cake is for
: eating, the decoration is additional to that, it doesn't make the cake
: taste any different than if the icing were plain. The decoration is for the
: eye, not the palette.

This is about the same point as above. I would say the icing is first
something to eat and second something pretty. If it were made of plaster and
thus inedible, it would no longer be icing. If it were ugly and artless it
would still be icing. So you can take away the artness, but not the
edibleness. So the edibleness is primary, art is secondary.

Another example is clothing. The designs and artistry inhere in the colors,
patterns, and shapes, just like typefaces, even more so. But ultimately a
pair of pants must cover up your fanny, that's what makes them pants, not the
artistry. The utilitarian "pantness" is primary. This is why you can't
copyright clothing designs, you can just protect their trademarks, and the
valid trademarks must be useless things like the Levi's pocket tab and not
embody any utilitarian aspects.

Are you typeface-copyright advocates willing to grant the same protection
to clothing?

: >I see grave problems. Identifying the truly original versus infringing

: >versus minimal designs seems an impossible task for a jury. It's not like
: >music where they play two songs and see if they sound alike.

: Surely it's exactly like that? Here's face "A", does this look like face
: "B"? The question is a straight-forward as that, the argument that goes on
: around that decision obviously is not, but neither would it be in an
: infringement of music copyright.

Surely it's not. What is your test of originality versus derivation versus
identity? If you say shapes must be identical copies to infringe, then rogues
can just clone with trivial modifications. If you relax the strict identity
requirement to say that resemblance proves copying, then you can't protect
a new design that is derived from a classic, public domain typeface, since you
haven't changed it enough to gain originality. Either way you're unprotected.

The domain of music is so broad that derivations and other infringements are
easy to distinguish from original works. Typefaces tend to be derivations and
look alikes, such as all the variations on Helvetica, some of them very slight
but no doubt laboriously crafted. Who could possibly draw a line between an
original and a clone, if I can just take inspiration from your designs to make
a different one, or yours looks almost like some classic design?

This objection of a self-contradiction originality test is equivalent to
saying that the medium is too constrained by the utilitarian aspects to be a
domain for works of authorship in the sense of copyright. How is it, then, if
the emporer has no clothes, that some countries proceed with protection
anyway? The answer is that everybody acts as if the registrations were
defensible. Instead, the costs to prosecute and defend infringement will
control who holds the property rights, instead of bona fide considerations.
Bad laws always have such results.

Richard Kinch

[Donald A. Hosek]

In article <AF1972BE...@typonaut.demon.co.uk>,

Clive Bruton/Typonaut <cl...@typonaut.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <5cmqi8$l...@tesla.netline.net>,
>ki...@netline.net (Richard J. Kinch) wrote:

>>A cookbook on cake decorating deserves copyright, while a pretty pattern for
>>decorated cakes doesn't, because the primary purpose of the icing is to be
>>eaten. The artistry or craftmanship is secondary.

>I think that in this case your analogy doesn't make sense, the cake is for
>eating, the decoration is additional to that, it doesn't make the cake
>taste any different than if the icing were plain. The decoration is for the
>eye, not the palette.

Not to mention that it's very near wrong. An icing decoration actually
can be copyrighted under U.S. law. It doesn't happen because of the
short-lived nature of the work. But, if you were to start making cakes
with a reproduction of some copyrighted artwork on them and selling
them, the owner of the copyright could file a claim against you.

Recipes on the other hand, while copyrightable, are easily modified
into independent works. Check out rec.food.cooking where the exact
line required is discussed on occasion. I think the generally accepted
criteria is the change of two ingredients and rewording of the
assembly instructions. If anything, it's the recipe that holds the
utilitarian function, not the icing.

[Tiro TypeWorks]

ki...@netline.net (Richard J. Kinch) wrote:

>Clive Bruton/Typonaut (cl...@typonaut.demon.co.uk) wrote:

>: Surely you can see the redundancy of type design given a purely utilitarian
>: viewpoint? And if it is redundant it can only be an artistic endeavour.

>Of course. I would agree that the stylistic aspects are in addition to the
>crude utilitarian letter shape, although a real philosopher might make a hash
>of that kind of decomposition and reduction. I think we were just round this
>very point with Tiro. But the art or style aspects don't exist apart from
>the artless shape recognizable as a letter, so the art is secondary, not
>primary, to the work, what the courts have called "mere embellishment".

This really is the heart of the matter, and one of my objections to Mr
King is his insistence that present US regulations are a deliberate
affirmation of his 'right' to copy, rather than an acknowledgement of
the complexity of legally discerning originality in type design.

I have two basic arguments in favour of protection, which are not
based simply on the desirability of preventing opportunists from
profiting from the work of others:

1) The originality in a type design which may, indeed, be considered
de minimus in relationship to the conventionally accepted and known
forms of the alphabet, is not de minimus in relationship to other type
designs. Since the issue of piracy is not that one typeface has copied
the alphabet, but that it has copied another typeface, it is
reasonable to consider any originality sufficient to distinctiveness
to be more than de minimus.

As I have demonstrated elsewhere (in my post on 'Typeface Value'), so
far without refutation, choices of preferment between identically
utilitarian typefaces are made by millions of people on a daily basis.
I do not believe it is so difficult as has been maintained by those
opposed to protection (and certainly not impossible) to devise tests
which could demonstrate sufficient originality in a courtroom. Nor
would it be difficult to carefully define the terms of sufficient
originality so as to ensure that, for example, not all sans serifs
could be judged copies of Helvetica. What is lacking is not method,
but willingness.

2) The claim that 'the art or style aspects don't exist apart from

the artless shape recognizable as a letter, so the art is secondary,

not primary' is false.

What are the art and style aspects of a letterform in a typeface? They
include overall proportion, the relationship of stroke weights, the
treatment of entasis, serif form or its lack. In what sense can anyone
claim that any of these 'don't exist apart from the artless shape
recognisable as a letter'? It seems to me that they exist entirely
apart from the shape of the letter to which they may be applied, and
the proof of this is that the same artistic and stylistic decisions
which are applied, in a type design, to letters may also be applied to
entirely abstract shapes which have no recognisable form and hence no
utility. I am willing to provide a demonstration of this, if it is
deemed necessary, but surely it is not hard to imagine 'Goudy Oldstyle
Abstract Shapes #1' -- a collection of entirely abstract forms given
the same artistic and stylstic treatments of proportion, stroke
weight, entasis and appendage form as Goudy's well known type design.

I am not making this point in the spirit of abstract argument, but
from working experience as a type designer. The art is _always_, for
me, primary: the idea to treat certain shapes in certain ways is the
beginning of every type design. The typeface is the vessel which I
hope will carry the idea. Having worked in this way, and having
studied the typefaces of the past, I am convinced that this is how
most type designers have worked in most instances (even when designing
to the specifications of new and exacting technologies -- the art of
the particular design may be constrained by circumstance, but it is
never secondary). As in any artwork, a type design can express much of
the author's personality (Goudy Oldstyle is, once again, a good
example). Further, as Robert Bringhurst's ongoing series of essays in
Serif magazine clearly record, the art of type design, in the cultural
milieu of its day, most often corresponds to developments, movements
and changes in other fields of artistic endeavour.

All art is constrained by those recognisable forms which it depicts.
To say that the art in a type design is constrained sufficiently to
disallow artistic protection is no more meaningful and true than to
say that a drawing of a vase is so constrained by its faithfulness to
the shape of that vase. Perhaps one might argue that entirely abstract
art is unconstrained by depiction of recognisable forms, but how much
abstract art is entirely so? Abstract art is constrained by the idea
that it represents and, ironically, type design is closer to such
abstract art than it is to those arts constrained by representation.
There is, after all, no set and recognisably official form of the
alphabet. There is no 'Grand Alphabet', set in metal and held at the
Academie Francaise to which all type designs, handwriting and
calligraphy make reference. The alphabet is an abstract idea, and the
symbolic form of the alphabet is, perhaps, the purest example we have
of a Platonic form: that upon which all representations of the
alphabet are based, but which has no form in this world. When children
are first taught the shapes of the alphabet, they are generally
exposed to light, monoline sans serif letters of simple form, but are
these, in any sense, more 'real', more 'ideal' than Goudy Oldstyle?
No, they are simply easier for children to learn and identify.

I think the point we come to here, at the heart of the matter, is that
the art in type design is often difficult for laymen to discern
(although far from impossible, as they daily demonstrate when they
choose to use Palatino rather than Times Roman), and more often
difficult for them to say how they discern. I believe that US law
acknowledges this difficulty, and has struggled with it. There have
been individuals in the US government who have favoured better
protection for type design, and the number of times the issue has been
argued in congress is surely an indication of how far from certain are
the existing regulations. Clearly, a very great number of people have
trouble with the terms of the existing regulations, and they cannot
all be accused of protectionism.

Type design _is_ a borderline case. The degree of art involved is not,
to the casual observer and potential judge or jurist, as evident nor
as well defined as in a painting, a novel or a song. Those of us who
are in favour of better protection are not claiming that you, Mr
Kinch, your congress or your Copyright Office are grossly mistaken in
the face of obvious artistic merit. What we are saying is that your
certainty of the obvious lack of such merit is doubtful, and that, in
the cautious interim in which these discussions should proceed, people
like the Reverend King should not be encouraged or permitted to take
personal advantage of the work of others.

[Richard J. Kinch]

Just about the time I was getting back to real work, John Hudson delivered
another of his thoughtful essays defending typeface protection, partly in
reply to my remarks against. So once again I am faced with the task of
answering.

I'll start by pointing out that no one answered the dilemma I posed that would
attend any prospective courtroom determinations of originality in typefaces.
This dilemma again is: (1) If exact copying is the proof of infringement, then
any trivial change will be a "safe harbor" for the rogue copyist; versus (2)
If less-than-exact copying, mere resemblance, is proof, then the art form will
be stifled because (a) variations now considered legitimate would exhibit such
resemblance, and (b) resemblance to an old public-domain typeface would render
the derived form unprotectible. This dilemma arises because of the
insufficient latitude (constraints) for creativity in typeface design,
compared to unconstrained mediums of words or music.

I'm also waiting to hear why clothing designs are not an exactly parallel
example of artistic expression to typefaces.

Tiro TypeWorks (ti...@portal.ca) wrote:

: (1)...I do not believe it is so difficult as has been maintained by those

: opposed to protection (and certainly not impossible) to devise tests
: which could demonstrate sufficient originality in a courtroom. Nor
: would it be difficult to carefully define the terms of sufficient
: originality so as to ensure that, for example, not all sans serifs
: could be judged copies of Helvetica. What is lacking is not method,
: but willingness.

We seem to have different beliefs, or hunches. Since you take the affirmative
position, it's your job to come up with an example of such standards, not mine
to prove the negative. My intuition, based on what I've studied in
infringement cases in other areas (software, BIOSes, music, chip designs,
among others), is that a rigorous courtroom standard would be impossible. My
dilemma (above) illustrates how any purported standard would either be fraught
with false-positive or false-negative conclusions.

: 2) The claim that 'the art or style aspects don't exist apart from

: the artless shape recognizable as a letter, so the art is secondary,
: not primary' is false.

John goes on to suggest that we could have a Goudy Oldstyle Abstract Shapes
typeface full of meaningless symbols. So far I would agree. There is a
"Goudy-ness" to Goudy that we careful observers can all see, that makes it
different from other faces. There's no question that the Goudy-ness can be
decomposed from the alphabet it is "hung" on, in a typical symbol set.

My criticism, however, did not rest on any inability to make such a
decomposition. All I said was that people choose typefaces first because
the fill the need to express the alphabet, and the choice of style is
second. In choosing a typeface to set a headline in, you wouldn't even
consider Goudy Oldstyle Abstract Shapes, even if Goudy is your favorite
style. So being an alphabet is primary, the art is secondary.

The trite "chili peppers" face is a good example, because it has a lot
of dingbat-ish things that go along with the letters. We see those
dingbats all over lately. But it chili peppers were only dingbats,
no one would have ever adopted it.

: All art is constrained by those recognisable forms which it depicts.

: To say that the art in a type design is constrained sufficiently to
: disallow artistic protection is no more meaningful and true than to
: say that a drawing of a vase is so constrained by its faithfulness to
: the shape of that vase.

Modern graphic arts are precisely the answer to this argument. How far away
from a natural bosom can a painter get before it doesn't evoke an urge to cop
a feel (or any other emotive response)? Pretty far. How far can typefaces go
before they become unreadable? Nothing like abstract art, they are very much
constrained.

: When children

: are first taught the shapes of the alphabet, they are generally
: exposed to light, monoline sans serif letters of simple form, but are
: these, in any sense, more 'real', more 'ideal' than Goudy Oldstyle?

Yes, they are. We could apply a mathematical metric based on how many
lines of METAFONT code or Type 1 coordinates were required to express
the shape. The crude "I" takes only 5 values: a pen diameter, starting
and ending coordinates. Goudy "I" would take many more. Etc.

: I think the point we come to here, at the heart of the matter, is that
: the art in type design is often difficult for laymen to discern.

I tend to agree, but your admission here proves the point. It is an immutable
aspect of US law that any distinctions must be accessible to a merely
"reasonable" man test, not an expert test. Literature and art may be
infinitely deep in complexities, but everybody knows plagiarism when they
see it.

I envision a jury being faced with three typefaces, (1) an old public-domain
face, (2) the plaintiff's registered face which resembles (1), and (3) the
defendant's face which resembles but does not exactly duplicate both (1) and
(2). The jury shrugs and decides for the defendant, being unable to
consistently quantify differences or resemblance in the three.

[Richard M. Alderson III]

NB: I am following up to a posting in a different thread, but I have no wish to
embroil myself in that mess.

In article <5d8bfc$1...@tesla.netline.net> ki...@netline.net (Richard J. Kinch)
writes:

>Tiro TypeWorks (ti...@portal.ca) wrote:

>: I think the point we come to here, at the heart of the matter, is that the
>: art in type design is often difficult for laymen to discern.

>I tend to agree, but your admission here proves the point. It is an immutable

>aspect of US law that any distinctions must be accessible to a merely "reason-

>able" man test, not an expert test. Literature and art may be infinitely deep
>in complexities, but everybody knows plagiarism when they see it.

>I envision a jury being faced with three typefaces, (1) an old public-domain
>face, (2) the plaintiff's registered face which resembles (1), and (3) the
>defendant's face which resembles but does not exactly duplicate both (1) and

>(2). The jury shrugs and decides for the defendant, being unable to consis-

>tently quantify differences or resemblance in the three.

I think this oversimplifies how such a trial would have to be conducted. The
jury would not be left to mull over only the final output of the fonts, but the
artistic trail left by each party to the suit of how the faces in question were
designed. The findings of the jury would have to be based on the reasonable-
ness of the defendant's method for creating her new face vis-a-vis the plain-
tiff's. That is, if the defendant could reasonably have created a face from
scratch, using the common materials consulted, then the plaintiff should lose.

Let's take a hypothetical example: John Hudson and I both produce faces of the
International Phonetic Alphabet, basing our designs on the faces used on the
front page of the New York Times on 17 November, 1858 (day 0 on the Tops-20
operating system). These two designs turn out to be very similar, and I sue
John for copyright infringement (he having moved south of the border for some
reason). He proceeds to show the court all his enlargements of areas on the
front page of the newspaper, his drawings (freehand or instrumented, paper or
electronic), and backup files from running Ikarus M and the like, none of which
look anything like mine because I used Fontographer 9.37 (I need some time to
get up to speed, after all), and I end up paying court costs and his attorney's
fees.

Any reasonable jury member could see the difference between that and "double-
click the Font Copy utility", I should think.
--
Rich Alderson You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
what not.
--J. R. R. Tolkien,
alde...@netcom.com _The Notion Club Papers_

[Tiro TypeWorks]

alde...@netcom16.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) wrote:

>I think this oversimplifies how such a trial would have to be conducted. The
>jury would not be left to mull over only the final output of the fonts, but the
>artistic trail left by each party to the suit of how the faces in question were
>designed. The findings of the jury would have to be based on the reasonable-
>ness of the defendant's method for creating her new face vis-a-vis the plain-
>tiff's. That is, if the defendant could reasonably have created a face from
>scratch, using the common materials consulted, then the plaintiff should lose.

>Let's take a hypothetical example: John Hudson and I both produce faces of the
>International Phonetic Alphabet, basing our designs on the faces used on the
>front page of the New York Times on 17 November, 1858 (day 0 on the Tops-20
>operating system). These two designs turn out to be very similar, and I sue
>John for copyright infringement (he having moved south of the border for some
>reason). He proceeds to show the court all his enlargements of areas on the
>front page of the newspaper, his drawings (freehand or instrumented, paper or
>electronic), and backup files from running Ikarus M and the like, none of which
>look anything like mine because I used Fontographer 9.37 (I need some time to
>get up to speed, after all), and I end up paying court costs and his attorney's
>fees.

>Any reasonable jury member could see the difference between that and "double-
>click the Font Copy utility", I should think.

Even more to the point, I think, is that the kind of test Mr Kinch
insists is next to impossible is regularly carried out in the
registration of design patents for type designs. More and more
typefaces are receiving patent protection, and the strict prior art
searches required for such registration are exactly the test that Mr
Kinch says cannot be done. US law makes provision for patent officers,
under authority of Congress, to make decisions of this nature on which
the courts will rest prejudicial weight -- indeed, this is enshrined
in the US Constitution (Art.1 Sec.8, Clause 8). So Mr Kinch is
incorrect in saying that all court decisions must be based on that
which can be determined by a jury of laymen -- that jury must be
instructed by the judge, under law, to place proper emphasis on the
registration of patents by the PTO.

The question is, why could not the same procedure be applied to the
registration of typeface designs for copyright? Again, what is
currently lacking is not method, but willingness. In this instance,
the unwillingness of the Copyright Office to acknowledge that there
are borderline cases, which their current procedures do not adequately
address. Such acknowledgement would, after all, imply that they should
change their procedures. In Britain, a special class of copyright law
was developed to cover type design. It seems to me that there is
little preventing such a development in the USA, other than
bureaucratic inertia. The Patent and Trademark Office has demonstrated
a far greater degree of flexibility than the Copyright Office, and has
so far outpaced the CO in consideration of issues of intellectual
property in the digital realm as to have prompted one US expert on IP
law to publish a paper suggesting that the PTO is poised to take over
the responsibilities of the CO.

Excuse the acronyms.

[Constantin Teleman]

> alde...@netcom16.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) wrote:
> >Let's take a hypothetical example: John Hudson and I both produce faces of
> >the
> >International Phonetic Alphabet, basing our designs on the faces used on the
> >front page of the New York Times on 17 November, 1858 (day 0 on the Tops-20
> >operating system). These two designs turn out to be very similar, and I sue
> >John for copyright infringement (he having moved south of the border for some
> >reason). He proceeds to show the court all his enlargements of areas on the
> >front page of the newspaper, his drawings (freehand or instrumented, paper or
> >electronic), and backup files from running Ikarus M and the like, none of
> >which look anything like mine because I used Fontographer 9.37 (I need some
> >time to get up to speed, after all), and I end up paying court costs
> >and his attorney's fees.
>
> >Any reasonable jury member could see the difference between that and "double-
> >click the Font Copy utility", I should think.

There could be some problems here. First, such evidence can be faked,
since autotracing scanned images and adjusting the outline by hand does
not naturally leave much in terms of a permanent record. So it would make
blatant copying more difficult, but that only means the clonemaker woul
have to be a bit more subtle. The problem is, if the results are close,
one can debate the supporting evidence forever.
Second, John would also end up paying his own attorney's fees; the only
net winners are the lawyers.
Third, it seems obvious that no "design copyright" should be awarded
to someone who merely digitizes a face, even with minor modifications.
(It is one good reason to oppose copyrighting design, given the ease of
fraudulently claiming classical designs.)

In article <5d8nu0$k...@thoth.portal.ca>, ti...@portal.ca (Tiro TypeWorks) wrote:

>
> The question is, why could not the same procedure be applied to the
> registration of typeface designs for copyright? Again, what is

> currently lacking is not method, but willingness. [...]

> It seems to me that there is
> little preventing such a development in the USA, other than
> bureaucratic inertia. The Patent and Trademark Office has demonstrated
> a far greater degree of flexibility than the Copyright Office, and has
> so far outpaced the CO in consideration of issues of intellectual

> property in the digital realm [...]

> John Hudson, Type Director

I'm not sure I understand the importance of specifically getting
*copyright* protection for the design. I think copyright is so easily
awarded because originality is usually so easyly settled; works created
independently will, in the vast majority of cases, show sufficient
variation to prevent frivolous disputes. Where, by the nature of the
work, establishing originality requires careful analysis, there should
also be a careful scrutiny before awarding any form of legal protection.

cheers,

constantin

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Tue, 28 Jan 1997 22:01:25 GMT, ti...@portal.ca (Tiro TypeWorks)
wrote:

>Useful indeed. I fully expect that he will change this information in
>an attempt to discredit me, so hurry if you want to see it
>unadulterated. (Now see if that doesn't generate more traffic than his
>sig.)
>
John, this is the type of useless slander about my motives and actions
that you promised already to stop. I want an immediate apology. If you
do not, then you are not serious about taking the high road. Put up or
shut up!

I have NEVER attempted to lie or change a situation, cite, or post to
discredit you. You have, as always, no basis for your words!

I have a direct question for you, John. Knowing that Slimbach has
applied for a patent for Minion, do you believe there is ANYTHING
rising to the creative level of patentability ANYWHERE in the font? I
assume you read my posts on the level of creativity required.
Slimbach's patent number is 338,907.

He declared NO prior art as relevant to the design. Do you think;

1) that was his honest asessment of the prior art situation?

2) that he had no access to any prior art?

3) that the font has any features not adapted, borrowed, or
plagiarized from other fonts?

I will tell you ahead of time, this is a trick question, so look
carefully! I am going to post an entire Minion Myth after our summary
judgement motion in mid March.

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Sat, 01 Feb 1997 01:04:12 GMT, ti...@portal.ca (Tiro TypeWorks)
wrote:

>pk...@flnet.com wrote:
>
>>I did! You are the one talking in generalities. I set forth a simple
>>premise. Only unacceptable anarchist philosophies disagree with the
>>moral right of governments to take PART (exclusivity only) of the
>>production of their citizens and distribute it for the public good.
>

>On what grounds are anarchist philosophies 'unacceptable'? This is not
>a challenge; I'm just curious why you say this. Some anarchist
>philosophy is as ancient as Plato, and a good deal of it is seriously
>considered within the canon of western philosophy. When Bertrand
>Russell wrote his study of western political philosophies, he devoted
>just as many pages and serious consideration to anarchism as to the
>others.

On the grounds of reality, acceptability as an authority to your
audience. I don't believe you will be taken seriously by any
reasonable person up on comp.fonts if you attempt to say "this
government action (of giving to the public) is immoral because all
government is bad." In an abundance of caution for accuracy, I did not
say that all philosophers agreed with me. It was easy to cover my
bases by ruling out the crackpots.

But, thumb through the pages of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke,
Rousseau, Montesquieu, Marx, Bacon, Adam Smith; you name it. You'll
see that all of them defend their particular political and/or economic
systems foremost on moral grounds.

If you want to try to get people here to buy into some crackpot
philosophies, knock yourself out. If you wan't to stay anywhere near
the mainstream, you are going to have to fold your tent and agree with
me

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Sat, 01 Feb 1997 01:12:06 GMT, ti...@portal.ca (Tiro TypeWorks)
wrote:

>Any amount of human labour is a mirror of that original, divine labour

>to which we all owe our existence; as such, labour is worthy of a
>special respect, and those who have laboured are due the rewards of
>their labour, just as God is due all reward and sacrifice, and no man
>has a right to take from or diminish that reward.

Would you say that they are due ALL the rewards from that labor in
every case?

Would you say that no government has a right to take from or diminish
that reward?

Since that argument applies to my labor as well as yours, how does
your argument apply to my work?

Since you don't say that the reward should end in a laborer's death,
presumably he has the right to assign the continuing reward. To whom
do you pay royalties for the use of serifs, bowl shapes, conceits,
concepts or lines taken from another's work?

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Tue, 28 Jan 1997 19:57:55 GMT, alde...@netcom18.netcom.com

(Richard M. Alderson III) wrote:

>You may be tired of these discussions--as am I--but you are criticizing the
>wrong participant, rather than that blackguard of the first water who steals
>under the guise of "fair use" the work of others. Until he is stopped, I
>will continue to tolerate this discussion, of which I am tired. (Though we
>are undoubtedly tired of it for different reasons: I wish it were unnecessary
>for it to continue.)

"blackguard" "of the first water" Two new terms of slander from
another person who fails to make a decent response to a single item I
have posted. What a gentle, civilized man, thoughtful ...

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Sat, 01 Feb 1997 22:22:53 +0000, cl...@typonaut.demon.co.uk (Clive
Bruton/Typonaut) wrote:

>Please rely on facts in your posts, not your opinions boosted by the
>misinformation of King et al. Type design is widely protected throughout
>the world (is everyone else wrong?). US Patent law *does* allow for the
>protection of type design under Design Patent.

Clive, you are a nut! Patent law provides for such limited protection
for ONLY typefaces which have features never before used (truly
creative) and not obvious to a person skilled in the craft. We see the
same features over and over in different forms in almost every font.
This does not make these fonts patentable. Tell the truth!

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Sat, 01 Feb 1997 22:22:52 +0000, cl...@typonaut.demon.co.uk (Clive
Bruton/Typonaut) wrote:

>I have to agree with John, I find your verbosity stunning, what you have
>compiled is also stunning. But don't believe that it equates to "research",
>you have merely warped a considerable range of sources (taking very small
>samples, where the body of the work disagrees with your point) to your
>point of view.

You have yet to post a single thing to show that ANY body of work
disagrees with my point. Unfortunately, your word alone that there is
disagreement, carries NO weight.

>As far as authorities go, the ultimate authority in my moral code is me, I
>have spent 32 years researching this and come to the conclusion that you
>are incorrect.

I have heard a lot of pea brained, conceited assertions in my day, but
your confidence in yourself as the moral arbiter for us all is
absolutely the most stupid thing I have heard of in years!

Most people would presume to have a moral benchmark that exists
outside themselves. To find someone actually out on the street who
thinks they are the moral center of the universe is incredible!

I dare say that your position really speaks volumes about your
character and the smallness of your outlook more than anything. You
sir, truly have a "size twelve ego in a size nine soul".

You say you have spent 32 years researching this, yet you have not run
across any Patent requirements, Treaties, Copyright regulations or
Court cases as I have repeatedly quoted. You seem to have spent the
same 4 months researching almost nothing - 96 consecutive times!

You have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to post as an authority except yourself?
After 32 years? Of research?

>My justification for this is that I have never fallen foul
>of the law and cannot recall ever being called a liar, cheat or parasite,
>something that you cannot match.

I am not afoul of the law! Adobe might as well be suing me (civil
case) because they don't like the shape of my nose! You don't need to
be right to sue in this country.

I have only had slanderers like yourself call me such things - without
legal or moral justification by any RECOGNIZED authority. I thank you
for finally stating the incredibly weak basis for your positions. Now
we will be able to ignore everything else that you say!

[Tiro TypeWorks]

pk...@flnet.com wrote:

>John, this is the type of useless slander about my motives and actions
>that you promised already to stop. I want an immediate apology. If you
>do not, then you are not serious about taking the high road. Put up or
>shut up!

>I have NEVER attempted to lie or change a situation, cite, or post to
>discredit you. You have, as always, no basis for your words!

As usual, you have avoided the central concern of the message you are
ostensibly responding to. Really, your selective posts are making this
entire discussion pointless.

You had made certain claims about the wonders of the SSi font database
(every time you post, in fact, which might just be why people keep
objecting to your sig) so I went and had a look. Turns out that your
database seems to contain almost no information at all -- so I wonder
how you can claim that it will answer 20% of the questions posed in
comp.fonts? Your claims regarding your database are a lie, and cast
doubt upon all you claims. So, no, I will not apologise.

>I have a direct question for you, John. Knowing that Slimbach has
>applied for a patent for Minion, do you believe there is ANYTHING
>rising to the creative level of patentability ANYWHERE in the font? I
>assume you read my posts on the level of creativity required.
>Slimbach's patent number is 338,907.

>He declared NO prior art as relevant to the design. Do you think;

>1) that was his honest asessment of the prior art situation?

>2) that he had no access to any prior art?

>3) that the font has any features not adapted, borrowed, or
>plagiarized from other fonts?

I am perfectly happy to permit the US Patent and Trademark Office to
make that decision.

What I will affirm is the obvious and simple truth that, however
original it may be deemed, Minion was made by Robert Slimbach -- he
invested time, talent, craft and at least some creativity. You have
invested nothing, and are simply out to profit from someone else's
work. I think this is wrong. A lot of other people think this is
wrong. We think it is wrong regardless of what the law says.

If your myriad of mythical supporters are too frightened to post in
comp.fonts because they fear someone being rude to them, please ask
them to e-mail me directly. I promise I will not be rude to them.

[Tiro TypeWorks]

pk...@flnet.com wrote:

>On the grounds of reality, acceptability as an authority to your
>audience. I don't believe you will be taken seriously by any
>reasonable person up on comp.fonts if you attempt to say "this
>government action (of giving to the public) is immoral because all
>government is bad." In an abundance of caution for accuracy, I did not
>say that all philosophers agreed with me. It was easy to cover my
>bases by ruling out the crackpots.

Well, I'm not about to start lecturing in comp.fonts on the long and
respectable history of philosophical anarchism. I will refer you again
to Russell's strudy of the major western political philosophies. Or
was Bertrand Russell a crackpot?

>But, thumb through the pages of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke,
>Rousseau, Montesquieu, Marx, Bacon, Adam Smith; you name it. You'll
>see that all of them defend their particular political and/or economic
>systems foremost on moral grounds.

As did William Godwin, to name just one important and philosophically
influential anarchist thinker.

>If you want to try to get people here to buy into some crackpot
>philosophies, knock yourself out. If you wan't to stay anywhere near
>the mainstream, you are going to have to fold your tent and agree with
>me

Please understand me, I am not an anarchist, nor do I have any
intention of challenging your arguments on these grounds. I just think
your criteria of acceptable authorities is ignorantly prejudicial and
arbitrary.

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Sat, 01 Feb 1997 01:29:00 GMT, ti...@portal.ca (Tiro TypeWorks)
wrote:

>What I have a problem with is an opportunist such as yourself making

>use of your government's efforts for the public good to line your own
>pockets, to the detriment of type designers, the health of the
>industry that supports type designers and the future public good which
>comes from the proliferation of new designs in the marketplace.
>
>Your government and your Copyright Office, have traditionally refused
>copyright protection to type design in order -- so they say -- to
>ensure that US citizens maintain the freedom to make use of any
>rendition of the alphabet they desire to use. This freedom can be
>amply exercised without your self-serving assistance,

It is the duty of every citizen .... Seriously John, the type industry
is as healthy as it has ever been. You keep trotting out these old,
discredited arguments without a shred of proof. There are more type
designers than there have ever been. Where do you get off spouting
this drivel? Aren't you ever embarassed to get caught like this
telling untruths?

> I do not

>believe it was ever the intention of your government that its ruling
>in this matter should justify private gain from the uncompensated work
>of others.

Then you would be wrong! The government clearly understood the
consequences of what they were doing. They were "warned" and chose
this course of action anyway. If you want to know what they thought,
why don't you do a little research instead of spouting off about
things you don't understand?

[Tiro TypeWorks]

pk...@flnet.com wrote:

>I dare say that your position really speaks volumes about your
>character and the smallness of your outlook more than anything. You
>sir, truly have a "size twelve ego in a size nine soul".

If Clive's position says anything at all about his character, it can
hardly add to or diminish the fact that he is widely respected as an
extremely fair and considerate individual. I have known Clive for two
years now, and have not met anyone who knows him who has a bad thing
to say about him. His dealings with others, particularly his business
dealings, are characterised by great consideration and respect.

Most people judge others by their actions, not by their
justifications. Perhaps this explains why Clive has never faced an
angry newsgroup crowd accusing him of immorally profiting from the
work of others.

[Tiro TypeWorks]

pk...@flnet.com wrote:

>>Any amount of human labour is a mirror of that original, divine labour
>>to which we all owe our existence; as such, labour is worthy of a
>>special respect, and those who have laboured are due the rewards of
>>their labour, just as God is due all reward and sacrifice, and no man
>>has a right to take from or diminish that reward.

>Would you say that they are due ALL the rewards from that labor in
>every case?

What I would say is that no other individual should have a right to
profit from that labour without exchange, trade or similar
compensation.

If I license a type design to a distributor, I am giving them a share
of my reward, but in return they are increasing that reward through
their own labour. This is how industries and whole economies grow and
flourish. Parasitical copying of another's work contributes nothing
new to the creation, diminishes from the reward of the original
labourer and those whom he has chosen to share in that reward, and
undermines growth.

>Would you say that no government has a right to take from or diminish
>that reward?

There you go again, insisting that this non-issue is the heart of this
matter. So here I go again, for the very last time:

No one -- not I, nor any other who opposes you, in all the posts I
have read -- has said that a legitimate government cannot appropriate
individual property, under legally defined conditions, for the public
good. UNDERSTAND? I am not disagreeing with you in this regard, and
your continued insistence that I am -- despite clear and explicit
statements to the contrary -- is becoming very annoying.

What I disagree with is the quantum mental leap that says

Public good = Paul King's bank account

The issue here is not public appropriation, but private profiteering.

[Tiro TypeWorks]

pk...@flnet.com wrote:

>Clive, you are a nut! Patent law provides for such limited protection
>for ONLY typefaces which have features never before used (truly
>creative) and not obvious to a person skilled in the craft. We see the
>same features over and over in different forms in almost every font.
>This does not make these fonts patentable. Tell the truth!

The truth is that the US Patent and Trademark Office is the only body
authorised by Congress to make such decisions, and that a court is
obliged by those rights of patent protection enshrined in the US
Constution to accept with due weight that authority. I for one am
happy to have the PTO make such decisions, know that the rigorous
prior art search they make in determining patent registration is a
sound basis for the protection they grant.

[pk...@flnet.com]

On 1 Feb 1997 20:16:41 -0500, agi...@wilde.oit.umass.edu (Andre G
Isaak) wrote:

>Ethical relativism is hardly a new concept, so it wouldn't be that
>shocking if I were to make such a claim. That wasn't, however, what I
>actually meant. _The Republic_ is not a book on ethics, per se. It is a
>discussion of Plato's political philosophy, and a system of government
>will be bound to the culture in which it arises. Moreover, just because
>we might recognise ethical abolutes which are independent of culture
>does not mean that authors will not be affected by the cultural mores of
>their times, and this must be taken into account in interpreting and
>evaluating their arguments.
>

It wouldn't be shocking, but it would put you on a slippery slope for
the other side in this argument. Relativism would mean that what
someone thinks is right for them may not be morally binding on me. I
am not keeping away from this area because it goes against me - on the
contrary, it goes against them. I argue against moral relativism on
the basis of my strongly held belief in moral absolutes.

>Well, actually Socrates killed himself (though I suppose he did have a
>certain amount of encouragement from his compatriots).

Come on Andre, a guard handed him a prepared poison after a jury trial
pronounced the sentance of death. You are quibbling!

>But what does
>this have to do with Plato's acceptance? The political outlooks of
>Socrates and Plato were rather divergent. Socrates believed in a
>democratic system. Plato espoused something more akin to (lowercase)
>national socialism (though bear in mind that comparing Plato's system
>with any 20th Century political system needs to be approached with
>caution), which is not exactly based on a 'universally accepted' view of
>'the relationship of government to citzen[s]'. Certainly it is not a
>major contributor to the US political system, which is the one most
>relevant to this discussion.
>

There are many "accepted" bases for ethics in a pluralistic society. I
have yet to hear a single one cited in proper context which disagrees
with my premises. If you have one, 'fess up. If not, let's go off of
comp.fonts to discuss the fine points of Plato's disagreements with
Socrates. You either can add something - or you can't - a binary
Aristotelian concept.

>In the _Euthyphro_, Plato explores the basis of the concepts of justice
>and ethical behaviour. He doesn't really get anywhere in this particular
>dialogue, but he does show rather convincingly that moral concepts and
>the notion of justice exist independently of god and do not merely
>descend from his authority.

I am glad to hear you say, "He doesn't really get anywhere in this
particular dialogue" I believe there are no relevant points there
either.

I disagree with your characterization that "the notion of justice
exist(s) independently of god and do(es) not merely descend from his
authority" I AM glad that you used the L/C "g" in god to express
Plato's concept of "god" as something less than an all powerful
personal being who loves us, sole creator of the universe, etc. as the
Judeo/Moslem/Christian tradition believes. THAT kind of GOD can be
clearly demonstrated to be the sole authority of moral concepts and
the notion of justice.Since Plato's concept of "god" is not accepted
by anybody you or I know, I feel you must discard that line of
reasoning or show Plato's god's relevance to the discussion of fonts.

I believe the God I love has everything to do with morals and justice.
You may not believe as I do, but you cannot dismiss my arguments of
God with an alternate definition of "god". I believe that is called
"the fallacy of four terms."

>I was attempting to suggest that the arguments which he employs can also
>be used to show that concepts of justice and morality exist
>independently of law and government.

Thumb through the pages of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau,

Montesquieu, Marx, Bacon, Adam Smith; you name it. You'll see that all
of them defend their particular political and/or economic systems
foremost on moral grounds.

>Despite your insistence that you have addressed the ethics of your

>activities, most of your discussion has focussed on legal issues. Thus,
>I felt that the above excercise might be useful.

I posted 1306 lines on legalities and 1332 on ethics. Although there
is a good amount of non-overlapping ethics material in the legal
posting.

>Also, your arguments that the government has the right to appropriate
>certain things from its citizens (in this case, font design), is
>irrelevant to the ethics of your activities, since it is not clear that
>the government has ever made such an appropriation.

It is very clear! Please read the facts before you post. ELTRA v.
Ringer clearly decided this very issue. If you don't stay up on the
facts, even a good logician will suffer from "garbage in - garbage
out". The Copyright Office relied on that decision when they said,

"To be registerable and copyrightable, a work must constitute an
"original work of authorship." 17 U.S.C. 102. Useful articles are not
protected except to the extent the articles contain artistic features
capable of existing separately and independently of the overall
utilitarian shape. Variations of typographic ornamentation [or] "mere
lettering" are not copyrightable. 37 CFR 202.1(a). In Eltra Corp. v.
Ringer, 579 F.2d 294 (4th Cir. 1978)"

>As I pointed out in a previous post, the US government's refusal to
>extend copyright protection to typeface design does not imply that they
>are appropriating those designs for the public. It implies that the
>relevant legislative bodies are uncertain as to how they can
>_practically_ disentangle the creative expenditure which goes into
>designing a face from the basic letterforms of the alphabet.

The Copyright Office clearly referred to the express intent of
Congress in denying that there was not an original work of authorship.
Here are two paras. from their regulations concerning fonts. They were
in the post. Please keep up.

"the Copyright Office has decided that digitized representations of
typeface designs are not registerable under the Copyright Act because
THEY DO NOT CONSTITUTE ORIGINAL WORKS OF AUTHORSHIP. The digitized
representations of typefaces are neither original computer programs
(as defined in 17 U.S.C. 101), nor original databases, NOR ANY OTHER
ORIGINAL WORK OF AUTHORSHIP."

"Both the Congress and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Eltra
Corp. v. Ringer decided that analog typeface designs are not now
copyright subject matter. The Copyright Office concludes that
typefaces created by a computerized-digital process are also
uncopyrightable. Like analog typefaces, digitally created typefaces
exhibit no creative authorship apart from the utilitarian shapes that
are formed to compose letters or other font characters. "

Your idle speculation is more on the lines of wishful thinking

>This is a legislative position (and one that I personally believe to be
>inadequate), not an ethical position.

I would not have done the extraction the way I have if the law was
not as it is. Take away the law, and you would take away my actions.
My moral right of non-exclusive ownership derives from rights given to
the public. You cannot extract the actions of the government from the
mix. Without those actions, we would not have the situation we now
have. If the government has the moral right to do what they did, then
they have the moral right to pass a clean title to any individual or
group of people downstream from their original moral interaction with
the designer. You disagree with my proposition, I know. The difference
between our arguments is that I have shown Biblical and philosophical
basis for my beliefs that you are wrong and you have shown none. You
have never cited a single authority to support your position. Who -
other than your friends - says that the ethical issue is distinct from
the law?

You cannot escape the moral imperitive for the economic interactions
between a government and people. To continue to maintain this
ridiculous position in the face of all of the evidence is foolish!

>> I have clearly shown the ethical validity of the government in taking
>> exclusivity in many areas and passing economic rights along to
>> citizens through discussions of the moral correctness of these actions
>> BEFORE the governments in question were ever formed. I have also shown
>> the moral right of citizens who recieve such largesse from the
>> government as well as the moral wrong of people who try to steal from
>> the public what the government has given them.
>
>You have shown this only by quoting authorities discussing political
>systems which are over two thousand years old. This does not constitute
>proof in any sense of the word.

It constitutes an continuously accepted ethical basis which must be
dealt with - accepted as a reasonable way to live for civilized men -
or dismissed by showing it is inadequate or by offering a superior
moral basis.

>> While I disagree with your idea of my involvement in the type
>> industry, is your argument;
>>
>> that only musicians should regulate musicians? only butchers should
>> regulate butchers?
>
>My position was merely that regulation of any any area cannot be done
>without input from people who are both knowledgable of that area and
>have practical experience working in that area, not that it should be
>exclusively in the hands of those people.

You cannot miss the fact sir, that all of this was done with hearings
before both Congress and the Copyright Office. 19 separate industry
groups made their pitch before the Copyright Office! The Office
summarized their positions and I posted this info in it's entirety in
Dec. PhD's from Adobe testified. Multimedia pitches were made.
Position papers were passed out like confetti. The previous General
Counsel for Adobe, I believe is the current Commissioner of patents.
Is that enough industry input for you???????

They HAD their say. They were not persuasive - at any turn. The law is
made, and they are whining.

[pk...@flnet.com]

On 1 Feb 1997 11:11:14 -0500, agi...@emily.oit.umass.edu (Andre G
Isaak) wrote:

>In article <32f10446....@news.packet.net>, <pk...@flnet.com> wrote:
>>
>>While my IQ can't boil water, it is higher than yours - so what's your
>
>I assume we're talking Celsius here. Your post didn't specify which units
>of measurement were being employed.
>
It was stupid of me to get drawn into that kind of egotistical numbers
game. It doesn't matter what smart ass comment you make. It is higher
than his!

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Mon, 27 Jan 1997 21:46:41 GMT, David Marshall
<da...@aestiva.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>Wow! 24,000 words of opinionated, badly informed, legally-twisting
>drivel. If he has the time to write this kind of thing it's no wonder
>his company produces such poor copies of some excellent typefaces.

Please prove your accusations of "badly informed" with better
information or apologize! If this is "legally twisting drivel", I will
get my comeuppance in May. If not, you owe me an apology, as do a few
others.

You have done such good research on the TrueType format. It is a shame
you couldn't do even a little research in this area before you went
running off at the mouth.

>I'd love to see your arguments die in court in a country with more
>informed copyright laws - Britian for example.

So, that is why you have so many great designers, who make so much
money in your expansive font market. Britian's enlightenment has
revolutionized the font industry and provides an inspiration and model
for type designers everywhere! Is that it? Hah!

You guys typographically have turned into a colony for us! Your sites
on the web are indicative of American influence and imports from top
to bottom! Designs, languages, influences, machinery all comes from
other places.

The nation whose laws you denigrate provides you most of what you
sell. It must be like "bringing coals to Newcastle!"

>I'd like to see a trademark lawyer's opinion of his font database.
>Copying someone else's carefully crafted designs is clearly wrong,
>but creating very bad copies and then selling them as having an
>"industry name of" or being "similar to" the source design is morally
>repugnant.

You can't copyright a database. The very purpose of it is to credit
the owners of the names. A trademark lawyer would say it is wonderful.
Your biases are showing.

>If your opinion of intellectual property is so low, we can only assume
>you've never created anything worth protecting. The software industry
>would be so much better without you Mr King.

Get used to it. I disagree with you. I think YOU are the one who is
wrong. And, I'm not leaving!

[pk...@flnet.com]

On 31 Jan 1997 22:36:57 GMT, pres...@aol.com (Preston43) wrote:

>May I politely suggest that we ALL stop responding to "Rev" King? All we
>are doing to providing him a forum--essentially, free advertising space.
>
>Let's make an effort NOT to respond to any of his posts.
>
I believed that was already what they were doing! They have yet to
attempt any reasonable refutation.

[pk...@flnet.com]

On Mon, 03 Feb 1997 02:05:05 GMT, ti...@portal.ca (Tiro TypeWorks)
wrote:

>ki...@netline.net (Richard J. Kinch) wrote:

>
>>Clive Bruton/Typonaut (cl...@typonaut.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>
>>: Surely you can see the redundancy of type design given a purely utilitarian
>>: viewpoint? And if it is redundant it can only be an artistic endeavour.
>
>>Of course. I would agree that the stylistic aspects are in addition to the
>>crude utilitarian letter shape, although a real philosopher might make a hash
>>of that kind of decomposition and reduction. I think we were just round this
>>very point with Tiro. But the art or style aspects don't exist apart from
>>the artless shape recognizable as a letter, so the art is secondary, not
>>primary, to the work, what the courts have called "mere embellishment".
>
>This really is the heart of the matter, and one of my objections to Mr
>King is his insistence that present US regulations are a deliberate
>affirmation of his 'right' to copy, rather than an acknowledgement of
>the complexity of legally discerning originality in type design.

"To be registerable and copyrightable, a work must constitute an

"original work of authorship." 17 U.S.C. 102. Useful articles are not
protected except to the extent the articles contain artistic features
capable of existing separately and independently of the overall
utilitarian shape. Variations of typographic ornamentation [or] "mere
lettering" are not copyrightable. 37 CFR 202.1(a). In Eltra Corp. v.
Ringer, 579 F.2d 294 (4th Cir. 1978)"

>As I pointed out in a previous post, the US government's refusal to
>extend copyright protection to typeface design does not imply that they
>are appropriating those designs for the public. It implies that the
>relevant legislative bodies are uncertain as to how they can
>_practically_ disentangle the creative expenditure which goes into
>designing a face from the basic letterforms of the alphabet.

You are wrong John. You are engaging in wishful thinking. Their
reasons are a matter of record and don't arise from the dilemma of
"how to protect". They clearly say the issue is that THEY ARE NOT
ORIGINAL ENOUGH TO WARRANT PROTECTION.

The Copyright Office clearly referred to the express intent of
Congress in denying that there was not an original work of authorship.
Here are two paras. from their regulations concerning fonts. They were
in the post. Please keep up.

"the Copyright Office has decided that digitized representations of
typeface designs are not registerable under the Copyright Act because
THEY DO NOT CONSTITUTE ORIGINAL WORKS OF AUTHORSHIP. The digitized
representations of typefaces are neither original computer programs
(as defined in 17 U.S.C. 101), nor original databases, NOR ANY OTHER
ORIGINAL WORK OF AUTHORSHIP."

"Both the Congress and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Eltra
Corp. v. Ringer decided that analog typeface designs are not now
copyright subject matter. The Copyright Office concludes that
typefaces created by a computerized-digital process are also
uncopyrightable. Like analog typefaces, digitally created typefaces
exhibit no creative authorship apart from the utilitarian shapes that
are formed to compose letters or other font characters. "

>I have two basic arguments in favour of protection, which are not

>based simply on the desirability of preventing opportunists from
>profiting from the work of others:
>
>1) The originality in a type design which may, indeed, be considered
>de minimus in relationship to the conventionally accepted and known
>forms of the alphabet, is not de minimus in relationship to other type
>designs. Since the issue of piracy is not that one typeface has copied
>the alphabet, but that it has copied another typeface, it is
>reasonable to consider any originality sufficient to distinctiveness
>to be more than de minimus.

What do you mean by "originality"? Do you assert that different kinds
of lines, bowls or serifs than have ever been contemplated by other
type designers are routinely arising from your studio?

>As I have demonstrated elsewhere (in my post on 'Typeface Value'), so
>far without refutation, choices of preferment between identically
>utilitarian typefaces are made by millions of people on a daily basis.

It was refuted by several people, John, including me. Value is not an
acceptable criteria for either Copyright or Patent.

>I do not believe it is so difficult as has been maintained by those
>opposed to protection (and certainly not impossible) to devise tests
>which could demonstrate sufficient originality in a courtroom.

The test of originality are already laid down in patent law. Read my
Myths #2 post and tell me ANY of your fonts meet the originality
requirements for patentability.

>Nor
>would it be difficult to carefully define the terms of sufficient
>originality so as to ensure that, for example, not all sans serifs
>could be judged copies of Helvetica. What is lacking is not method,
>but willingness.

The Patent office has hired examiners who are willing any time you
feel like a submission. Judge Whyte in the Northern District of
California is willing to consider 22 Adobe patents (in front of a jury
if necessary) this very spring.

>2) The claim that 'the art or style aspects don't exist apart from
>the artless shape recognizable as a letter, so the art is secondary,
>not primary' is false.
>
>What are the art and style aspects of a letterform in a typeface? They
>include overall proportion, the relationship of stroke weights, the
>treatment of entasis, serif form or its lack. In what sense can anyone
>claim that any of these 'don't exist apart from the artless shape
>recognisable as a letter'? It seems to me that they exist entirely
>apart from the shape of the letter to which they may be applied, and
>the proof of this is that the same artistic and stylistic decisions
>which are applied, in a type design, to letters may also be applied to
>entirely abstract shapes which have no recognisable form and hence no
>utility. I am willing to provide a demonstration of this, if it is
>deemed necessary, but surely it is not hard to imagine 'Goudy Oldstyle
>Abstract Shapes #1' -- a collection of entirely abstract forms given
>the same artistic and stylstic treatments of proportion, stroke
>weight, entasis and appendage form as Goudy's well known type design.

If you believe what you just wrote about "goudyness" or
"garamondness", how do you feel about Slimbach including a Garamond
traced from metal type impressions in the Adobe Originals collection
(Originals ??? Hah!) and further, how do you feel about the morality
of his attempt to patent the font? Do you feel this is the proper
purpose of a patent. Do you feel he was a designer or a digitizer?

>Those of us who
>are in favour of better protection are not claiming that you, Mr
>Kinch, your congress or your Copyright Office are grossly mistaken in
>the face of obvious artistic merit. What we are saying is that your
>certainty of the obvious lack of such merit is doubtful, and that, in
>the cautious interim in which these discussions should proceed, people
>like the Reverend King should not be encouraged or permitted to take
>personal advantage of the work of others.

After four separate considerations in Congress (due to other copyright
considerations) and two sets of regulations in the Copyright Office,
how much more deliberation is required? Mr. Kinch's doubt or lack
thereof cannot take the place of Congress' certainty. If they were
uncertain (and I don't believe they were) then they still made law to
tide us over in the meantime until they became certain. We would do
well to follow that law, being law. It seems like you will seize on
any pretext to insist on a time advantage.

There are actually no discussions proceeding. You refuse to address
the issues I have raised in this forum. And no petitions for
reconsideration are before either the Copyright Office or Congress.

[Donald A. Hosek]

In article <32f8274f....@news.packet.net>, <pk...@flnet.com> wrote:
>On 31 Jan 1997 22:36:57 GMT, pres...@aol.com (Preston43) wrote:

>>May I politely suggest that we ALL stop responding to "Rev" King? All we
>>are doing to providing him a forum--essentially, free advertising space.

>>Let's make an effort NOT to respond to any of his posts.

>I believed that was already what they were doing! They have yet to
>attempt any reasonable refutation.

You claim that you are acting in a moral manner. I have disagreed with
this.

The following do not seem to have been denied by you & I assume that
you accept them as true.

1. You do not pay designers for the use of their designs.
2. Your use of their designs negatively impacts their earnings from
their designs.

I cited a number of passages from the old and new testaments as well
as a papal encyclical all supporting the fact that these actions were
immoral and unjust.

Your response: That the government is the one taking their designs.

At best an attempt to shift responsibility.

The government is not providing legal protection for designs and
you're fast on the way to being at the center of the legal case that
will establish appropriate precedents in U.S. courts for the whether
digital type outlines are protectable as software. But it is YOUR
actions that are causing the harm.

You also conveniently ignore the fact that it is possible for
governments to act unjustly, a fact that is recognized throughout the
Judeo-Christian tradition. A quote from _Handbook of the Christian
Religion_ by W. Wilmers, S.J. (1891), "The end of the state or of
civil authority is directly to promote the temporal welfare of its
subjects." Even should the government be directly advocating the theft
of font programs (which it is not doing), it would be the duty of the
just man to not comply in such an unjust action.

You are not being called by the government to steal type designs so
you can't even hide behind the Pauline call to obedience to authority.

Your attempts at self-justification simply reveal you as being morally
bankrupt rather than give any indication that you are being genuinely
driven by some sort of moral guide.

One final comment: You have claimed to be a Christian. Surely you must
know that Christians are called not simply to do what is necessary but
to go beyond that. Remember the story of the rich young man who came
to Jesus and asked what he must do to achieve eternal life? It was not
enough to simply follow the law; he had also to go beyond that and
give up his wealth and follow Jesus.

[David Marshall]

In a post, ki...@netline.net (Richard J. Kinch) wrote:
> (1) If exact copying is the proof of infringement, then
> any trivial change will be a "safe harbor" for the rogue copyist; versus (2)
> If less-than-exact copying, mere resemblance, is proof, then the art form will
> be stifled because (a) variations now considered legitimate would exhibit such
> resemblance, and (b) resemblance to an old public-domain typeface would render
> the derived form unprotectible.

Hmmm, this is an odd argument. Britain already has extensive copyright coverage
of typeface design - but as will all apparent copyright infringements, it is up
to a court to decide whether a work is derivitive enough to be an infringement.

If I write a book that is remarkably similar to one you wrote, it is up to me
to persuade a court that it's not derived and up to you to persuade them that
it is. I see no reason why type, digital or otherwise should be any different.

Dave
--
http://www.aestiva.demon.co.uk/

[Richard M. Alderson III]

In article <ct207-05029...@ct207.joh.cam.ac.uk> ct...@cam.ac.uk
(Constantin Teleman) writes:

>>alde...@netcom16.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) wrote:

>>>Let's take a hypothetical example: John Hudson and I both produce faces of
>>>the International Phonetic Alphabet

>There could be some problems here. First, such evidence can be faked, since

>autotracing scanned images and adjusting the outline by hand does not
>naturally leave much in terms of a permanent record. So it would make blatant
>copying more difficult, but that only means the clonemaker woul have to be a
>bit more subtle. The problem is, if the results are close, one can debate the
>supporting evidence forever.

If the source of the scanned image is not shown to be anything other than a
copy of the disputed design, the defendant loses. Period. If the copier goes
to the trouble of creating enough material to support a claim of independent
invention for the disputed design, then (a) the defendant probably did *not*
copy the design, as that's too much trouble once all the work is done, and (b)
the plaintiff loses.

>Second, John would also end up paying his own attorney's fees; the only net
>winners are the lawyers.

Varies from state to state; this can be a form of punishment of the plaintiff
for bringing a "frivolous" lawsuit, for example. Judge's discretion, I think.

>Third, it seems obvious that no "design copyright" should be awarded to
>someone who merely digitizes a face, even with minor modifications. (It is
>one good reason to oppose copyrighting design, given the ease of fraudulently
>claiming classical designs.)

Look again at the example proposed. Nothing is said about "merely digitizing a
face." The IPA is a major undertaking for any designer, especially if trying
to harmonize with another design. Your straw man just blew over.

>I'm not sure I understand the importance of specifically getting *copyright*
>protection for the design. I think copyright is so easily awarded because
>originality is usually so easyly settled; works created independently will, in
>the vast majority of cases, show sufficient variation to prevent frivolous
>disputes. Where, by the nature of the work, establishing originality requires
>careful analysis, there should also be a careful scrutiny before awarding any
>form of legal protection.

Because of the kind of protection provided under copyright law, I should think.
Patents are certainly more limited in temporal extent; I believe that they may
come with other baggage that is limiting, as well. Not being an IP attorney, I
can't say further.

[Richard M. Alderson III]

I don't recall naming anyone. How is it that you think I mean you?

[David Marshall]

In a post, pk...@flnet.com wrote:
> Please prove your accusations of "badly informed" with better
> information or apologize! If this is "legally twisting drivel", I will
> get my comeuppance in May. If not, you owe me an apology, as do a few
> others.

As your font CDs are sold in Britain, I'm surprised there are no cases
pending against you here. You would get a big shock if you resorted
to your flowery quotations here.

> So, that is why you have so many great designers, who make so much
> money in your expansive font market. Britian's enlightenment has
> revolutionized the font industry and provides an inspiration and model
> for type designers everywhere! Is that it? Hah!

It may surprise you to discover that Britain is somewhat smaller than
America. However, I find your comments about our designers very insulting.
Indeed, I would describe you as badly informed if you're not aware of
the work of our great designers.

> You can't copyright a database. The very purpose of it is to credit
> the owners of the names. A trademark lawyer would say it is wonderful.
> Your biases are showing.

What are you on about!? Using someone else's trademark to promote your
own product is a trademark infringement. If I sell my vacuum cleaner
as being similar to a Hoover, I'd get sued into the ground.

> Get used to it. I disagree with you. I think YOU are the one who is
> wrong. And, I'm not leaving!

Will you be removing your type CDs from sale in Britain where they are
clearly infringing many people's copyrights?

Dave
--
http://www.aestiva.demon.co.uk/

[Daniel Hale]

pk...@flnet.com wrote:
> So, that is why you have so many great designers, who make so much
> money in your expansive font market. Britian's enlightenment has
> revolutionized the font industry and provides an inspiration and model
> for type designers everywhere! Is that it? Hah!
>

> You guys typographically have turned into a colony for us!...

> Designs, languages, influences, machinery all comes from
> other places.

Hmm. There's always Caslon, English of yore, and redesigned by the
American designer Carol Twombly; Baskerville, English, late 18th C, from
which the American foundry Emigre's new face Mrs. Eaves is openly
derived. I believe the Englishman Neville Brody's type was very popular
a few short years ago, and the English Gill Sans makes an appearance on
the signage of Microsoft's vaunted creative furnaces at Redwest.

Looks to me like the English are doing plenty of creating. Let's not get
jingoist on Usenet, okay?

Dan

[Constantin Teleman]

In article <ALDERSON.9...@netcom16.netcom.com>,
alde...@netcom.com wrote:

> In article ct...@cam.ac.uk (Constantin Teleman) writes:
>
> >>alde...@netcom16.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) wrote:
>
> >>>Let's take a hypothetical example: John Hudson and I both produce faces of
> >>>the International Phonetic Alphabet

[...]

> If the source of the scanned image is not shown to be anything other than a
> copy of the disputed design, the defendant loses. Period.

All that seems to be needed is a scanned copy of a public domain
original. The intermediate work need not leave any hard trace. Short
of creating an unnatural burden of proof for the defendant, I don't
se how you could guarantee effective protection.

> >Third, it seems obvious that no "design copyright" should be awarded to
> >someone who merely digitizes a face, even with minor modifications. (It is
> >one good reason to oppose copyrighting design, given the ease of fraudulently
> >claiming classical designs.)
>
> Look again at the example proposed. Nothing is said about "merely
> digitizing a face." The IPA is a major undertaking for any designer,
> especially if trying to harmonize with another design.
> Your straw man just blew over.

> --
> Rich Alderson

I thought the example you had proposed was clearly an instance of derivative
work (you omitted the relevant part now, and sorry, I didn't keep copies).
The main elements of variation, in adapting a face, are well-known (to
people in the business), and minor by any objective standard. "Harmonizing
with another design" places even stronger limits, and leaves even *less*
room for originality, hence for claims of "authorship", so it should be
an extra disqualifier.
(I think that is at the core of the debate.)

cheers,
constantin

[David Foy]

If you deprive King of jingoism, obfusication,
misdirection, egotism and his profound disrespect
for other people, you make it impossible for him
to discuss these issues.
--
=====================================
Do not reply to the spam-block address above!
reply to e-mail address: df...@canuck.com

Daniel Hale <dh...@pobox.com> wrote
: Looks to me like the English are doing plenty

:

[adde...@interaccess.com]

On 2/6/97 12:24PM, in message <32FA21...@pobox.com>, Daniel Hale
<dh...@pobox.com> wrote:

> <snip>

>
> Hmm. There's always Caslon, English of yore, and redesigned by the
> American designer Carol Twombly; Baskerville, English, late 18th C, from
> which the American foundry Emigre's new face Mrs. Eaves is openly
> derived. I believe the Englishman Neville Brody's type was very popular
> a few short years ago, and the English Gill Sans makes an appearance on
> the signage of Microsoft's vaunted creative furnaces at Redwest.
>

> Looks to me like the English are doing plenty of creating. Let's not get
> jingoist on Usenet, okay?

Disregarding for a moment that "modern" (17th c. on) English fonts are
primarily derived from Dutch fonts, it's interesting that Mrs. Eaves is derived
from Baskerville. I visited the Emigre site a few days ago, to see if they'd
learned anything about legibility in the 7 years since I last saw their
offerings. I was impressed (even surprised) by Mrs. Eaves as a legible font. I
didn't spend long studying it, as I am expecting an Emigre catalog by mail, but
derivation from Baskerville would explain why I liked it.

Baskerville is my favorite text font, and I use it extensively. I had New
Baskerville (Mergenthaler, before they sold the license to ITC) on my CRTonic,
as well as Linotype Baskervile No.2 w/long descenders. I have several Type 1
and TTF Baskervilles. Hell, I'm even a Sherlock Holmes buff. (Typographers
should be aware that Conan-Doyle came up with the name "Hound of the
Baskervilles" because his stories were published in "The Strand," which was
typeset in Baskerville.)

Although Baskerville influenced both Didot and Bodoni, it should probably be
noted that his contributions to type design, as well as conceiving hot-pressed
paper, were not well appreciated in his own country in his lifetime.

Jeff/addesign