Is Adobe stretching their rights?

[32BT]

I was recently looking for information on the VAG rounded font for which a wikipedia entry was available. Maybe wiki remains controversial in the academic world, but I very much like how wiki also seems a great repository for storing the history and background of most any subject, including stuff that otherwise might quickly get lost in oblivion forever.

Anyway, what little i know about this font seems to sustain that this is a genuine entry in wiki. A little internet research seems to reveal that it may be written by Bertel Schmitt, one of the creative directors surrounding the inception of the font.

Ok, so it says:

VAG Rundschrift or VAG Rounded (Rundschrift is German for round writing) is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed in 1979 as a corporate typographic voice for the Volkswagen AG motor manufacturer.

Worldwide availability of the font was a problem. To solve the problem, V.A.G Rounded was put in the public domain. As Desktop Publishing emerged in the mid 1980’s, V.A.G Rounded was included in most free font packages and became widely used for that reason.

Volkswagen ended its use of the VAG Rundschrift family in the early 1990s, and it is widely available today and is licensed through Adobe Systems.


So why do i bring this up? Well, whether true or not, one thing is for sure: Adobe neither designed nor invented the font. It may have digitized the font in a specific format for specific digital uses, but the questions open for discussion are these:

1. how can they now claim rights to intellectual property that is not theirs to claim?

2. Is this somehow comparable to digitizing a picture/scene and therefor Canon/Nikon et al can claim copyrights to your creative vision because their hardware/software/formats are used for capture and storage?

3. How far can this be stretched? If you make pixeladjustments in Photoshop, and store your image in an adobe proprietary format, can they suddenly claim rights? e.g. make money off of licenses?

[Justan]

People re-sell stuff from the public domain all the time. You could do it, if you wanted to. What you are paying for is their production of the product to Adobe’s standards, which is part of Adobe’s intellectual contribution. This doesn't have to include the font concept behind it.

> 2. Is this somehow comparable to digitizing a picture/scene and therefor Canon/Nikon et al can claim copyrights to your creative vision because their hardware/software/formats are used for capture and storage?

Manufacturers could put a use related license on their products, but they would have to enforce their rights. If they starting filing suits against hardware users for not paying use fees, few would buy their products, and fewer would continue to use the products. The implied point is that the manufacturers get their fees when you buy the product as opposed to on going fees for the use of it.

[Jeremy Payne]

I think you are confusing underlying intellectual property rights with products.

Because the font is in the public domain, Adobe can't prevent someone else from producing a product based on this font ... but that doesn't mean they can't sell a product based on it themselves.

[32BT]

I think you are confusing underlying intellectual property rights with products.

Because the font is in the public domain, Adobe can't prevent someone else from producing a product based on this font ... but that doesn't mean they can't sell a product based on it themselves.

Well, allow me to make a different comparison then: suppose you make available one of your images in the public domain. Then Adobe creates a PDF from it and starts to sell licenses through a stock program? i.e. Adobe thus disclaims your ownage to the picture if and when you use their PDF version of it...

[Panopeeper]

1. how can they now claim rights to intellectual property that is not theirs to claim?

To which specific claim are you referring to? Is this font mentioned specifically somewhere in the licence agreement of an Adobe product?

[lightstand]

Well, allow me to make a different comparison then: suppose you make available one of your images in the public domain. Then Adobe creates a PDF from it and starts to sell licenses through a stock program? i.e. Adobe thus disclaims your ownage to the picture if and when you use their PDF version of it...

This is exactly what the Orphan works bill is all about and why i find it suspect that AP brought the copyright infringement case against the Artist who painted President Obama.  Other than Google, AP will be one of the biggest to gain from any deregulations to the Copyright laws.  It's not about someone who photographs a spot news event with a camera-phone for free it's about who will distribute those images and the cost for their so-called researching to provide those images.

Of course to your original question do you know that Adobe didn't buy the rights?  Correct me if I'm wrong but at one time Michael Jackson owned the rights to songs the Beetles wrote.

[Jeremy Payne]

Well, allow me to make a different comparison then:

Ok ...

suppose you make available one of your images in the public domain.

Ok ... that is the equivalent of leaving something out on the street for anyone to pickup.  I don't do that, I reserve all rights on my images.

Then Adobe creates a PDF from it and starts to sell licenses through a stock program? i.e. Adobe thus disclaims your ownage to the picture if and when you use their PDF version of it...

They can commercialize my image because, and only because, I made the image available to them (and everyone else in the world) ... I 'disclaimed' my rights, not Adobe.

I'm not sure I understand your outrage at this situation.

[32BT]

They can commercialize my image because, and only because, I made the image available to them (and everyone else in the world) ... I 'disclaimed' my rights, not Adobe.

I'm not sure I understand your outrage at this situation.

lol @ outrage...

No, you did NOT disclaim your rights, because if it is in the public domain you own it as much as the next person. However, Adobe (or some other company) adds some productivity to it, or it lends a service on it, it can charge for the service or for that particular productivity, but it can not claim usage rights as is generally understood under a license construction.