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Comment by huac | Hacker News Reader

Very similar to smelvetica (https://github.com/tholman/smelvetica) which did get takedown notices from Monotype.

Haha, thanks for the shout out. Here was the HN convo for smelvetica - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17925352

Yeah, like a lot of people mentioned here, I didn’t really fight the takedown. Didn’t really have a lot of interest wasting any time with people who’s sole job was to ruin the fun. And on the flipped side, found it even funnier that they felt it hurt their brand at all.

Ew.

I don't blame tholman for complying with the takedown, but my layman's understanding is that Monotype had no legal grounds for their complaint because parody is protected -- they were just using legal language to intimidate him into complying. Does that jibe with others' understanding of the law?

You are correct, and I reached out to the author about fighting their bogus claims. He wasn’t interested, but this was a while ago. Perhaps if this new parody font fights them, he’d be willing to do the same for smelvetica

IP law with fonts is kind of unintuitive. From what I’ve read, the design of a font can’t be copyrighted, but the implementation can. So you can make a font that looks identical to Helvetica and be okay, but if you copy and paste anything from the original, you’re on shaky ground. Kind of like how recipes can’t be copyrighted, but the wording and formatting of a recipe can. IANAL of course, but that’s what I’ve read in the past.

Parody doesn't apply to software. You might have noticed Monotype is always using the phrase "font software" to underline the fact that fonts are considered software, not a design, and thereby enjoy stronger protection than non-software copyrighted works.

Interestingly the commit history wasn't amended [0], so it is still technically possible to download smelvetica.

[0] https://github.com/tholman/smelvetica/commit/83eadad7edf1878...

Given that Monotype has a nonzero chance of browsing this thread, are you sure this is a fact you want to publicly draw attention to?

many of us have already saved it. If they go full-streisand on that, so good!

Right, but the author made his intentions and wishes clear, and I feel like publicly drawing attention to him in this manner disrespects those intentions and wishes.

This is the Internet and it's bound to happen. If not me, someone else would have, and probably already, pointed it out.

I'm also not sure what you are referring to with "the author made his intentions and wishes clear", but think my pointing out of the git history has nothing to do with it.

Thinking my comment is in any way going to influence the fate of this repository seems a bit far fetched.

> disrespects those intentions and wishes

I don't interpret it this way. All the author has said is that he didn't want the hassle of fighting the take-down, not that he particularly wished for the take-down to proceed or that he thought it was correct (legally or otherwise).

Depending on the wording of the take-down notice, not having removed the history as well as the latest easily accessible versions could have been an error on his part that Monotype may now ask him to rectify (hopefully nicely and politely, if they do), or as he is active on this thread he may do anyway.

The tone of his comment above doesn't suggest he is bothered by people drawing attention to the matter.

Honestly, as a very clear parody, I don't see Monotype having a right to claim there are 'copyright issues at hand here'. In my eyes, this falls completely under fair use.

That is, UNLESS the exact glyphs were used, with only spacing altered - then I can see it being a fair point.

Dev there is a champ and didn't wipe the repo history, though

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