Harry Potter' Font Theft

In the past few weeks, a number of Hollywood companies were served with cease-and-desist letters over the use of fonts on merchandise, albums and other promotional items. Last week, one legal threat became a lawsuit. NBC Universal, whose Universal Studios unit has licensed some Potter rights in connection with its theme parks, was hit with a $1.5 million suit from a company that took exception to the type of font used on Harry Potter merchandise.

The lawsuit against NBC Universal was filed in New York District Court by P22 Type Foundry. According to the complaint, NBC Universal used Cezanne Regular type face font software to create Potter merchandise including a "Hedwig Pillow," a "Dementor Cap," and a "Hogwarts Stationery Set."

Representing P22 in the lawsuit is Frank Martinez, a lawyer based in Brooklyn who previously sued NBCU in 2009 for $2 million for fonts being used by its cable financial network, CNBC. Martinez has now picked up new clients with specialty fonts and has been aggressively seeking compensation from alleged infringers, including a famous band over a best-selling album.

The latest lawsuit against NBCU might signal further lawsuits to come. Are there legitimate claims here? Let's analyze.

Fonts can't be copyrighted. Code of Federal Regulations (Chapter 37) says as much: "The following are examples of works not subject to copyright and applications for registration of such works cannot be entertained...typeface as typeface"

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Insider Offers Crossgrade Discounts on New FontAgent Pro Lion Release

 Insider Software today announced a cross-grade promotion for users of other Macintosh font management software, including Suitcase Fusion from Extensis. Users of competing products can purchase the new release from Insider of FontAgent Pro 4.2 for Mac at discounts of up to 40% off regular prices. The new version of FontAgent Pro includes auto-activation plug-ins for Adobe CS5.5, and 5.5.1., and provides compatibility with Mac OS X Lion.

Unrivaled Font Management and Support for Mac OS X Lion and Adobe Creative Suite 5.5

Built on Insider's unique FontSavant(TM) technology, FontAgent Pro always selects the right font for your Adobe documents - not just a close match or one that has the same name. FontAgent Pro offers performance that crushes the competition and has an array of features that are unmatched.

Robert Leeds, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Insider Software observed, "We have been receiving a flood of inquiries from designers who wish their font manager could do more and would like to move up to FontAgent Pro, but they feel trapped since they have already invested in a font manager. By offering them special pricing to switch to FontAgent Pro, we have made the decision a no-brainer."

font generator, font maker, font creator, online font generator, online font creator, create your own font, generate your own font, download fonts for free, how to make fonts

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New Firefox update to address Lion bug

Mozilla has announced an update for its Firefox browser for the Mac platform to deal with a bug in Apple's impending Lion OS, Computer World has reported. According to Mozilla, Mac Operating System X 10.7 (Lion) contains a bug that causes Firefox 5 to crash when displaying websites that use downloadable fonts. "We alerted Apple to the problem before the discharge of 10.7 but they did not fix the problem before 10.7 went to final release," Christopher Blizzard, Mozilla's Web platform director, said on the company's blog. "We've changed the font APIs that we're using to newer versions which appear to fix the problem."

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Kobo eReader Gains New Fonts, Adjustable Margins, Line Spacing

Not sold on the Kindle? If you're head over heels for the Kobo eReader Touch Edition, there's actually a good bit of good news to share. The company's continuing the update process surrounding the device, with a new v1.9.5 firmware update that allows substantial customization with new font, margin and layout options.  Below are highlights of the updates:

* Personalize Your Reading Experience by Adding New Fonts: The new firmware allows users to add their own fonts easily and quickly for total personalization.  Simply create a new Font directory on the Touch Edition using your laptop, netbook or desktop computer, then drag custom fonts into the Font folder.  Nook and Kindle don’t offer the ability to add fonts and personalize the reading experience in this manner.

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Touch Edition Gets Updated With Font Customization

We had mixed feelings when it came to Kobo’s Touch Edition eReader. Specifically, we felt that the device was “not really a better reading knowledge than other devices (though not a worse).” However, that feeling might change since the Kobo eReader Touch Edition is getting an update, which should bring with it some cool new customization features.

Basically the update will give users the ability to add their own fonts, and make new fonts on their laptop which can then be synced over to the Kobo eReader. The Kobo eReader Touch Edition is a beautiful simplistic device, so chances are a lot of Kobo owners aren’t necessarily what we’d call tech savvy. If you happen to be one of them and the idea of side-loading fonts seems scary, no worries. You’ll still be able to modify your Kobo’s font by choosing from the five fonts that will be included in the update: Amasis, Delima, Felbridge, Gil Sans, and Rockwell. That brings Kobo’s on-board font offerings to a total of seven fonts, across 25 different sizes.

The update will also bring line-spacing, margin, and justification control to the Kobo eReader Touch Edition, all along with the ability to turn off Kobo styling altogether. It’s worth noting that Kobo’s greatest competitors encourage and the Nook, don’t offer the ability to add fonts. The whole point of an eReader is to find an opportune, space-saving way to enjoy books, and customizable font’s sounds like a great way to improve the experience. Maybe the Kobo could be a “better” reading experience after all.

Font Creator

Mozilla's browser-based pdf project 'close' to reality

Efforts to make a JavaScript-based PDF reader for Mozilla’s Firefox and other HTML5-enabled browsers appeared to gain more ground in July after its pdf.js project reached a “milestone."

Programmers Andreas Gal and Chris Jones said pdf.js said that version 0.2 of their project managed to render the Tracemonkey paper perfectly, dynamically loading TrueType and Type 1 fonts.

“This is the most dramatic demonstration of pdf.js’s biggest feature in 0.2: loading Type 1 fonts ... Dynamically loading Type 1 fonts into a web application was a big challenge," they said in Mozilla’s blog.

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Font Pain and Poetry: So Much Depends on a Curve

Font wonks fight. They champion some typefaces and sneer at others. They go ballistic if a system of signage is altered, as when Ikea changed its designated corporate font from Futura to Verdana in 2009. And they show off tribal symbols. A T-shirt that is depicted in Simon Garfield’s “Just My Type: A Book About Fonts” is adorned with nothing but the ornate ampersand of the font Caslon. This graphic, Mr. Garfield remarks, is capable of “occasionally eliciting a nod from another aficionado, like smug fans of a cool pop band before it becomes famous.”

Sometimes (as with Ikea’s typeface treachery) a tipping point will rock the world of fonts. “Just My Type” should be one of them. This is a smart, funny, accessible book that does for typography what Lynne Truss’s best-selling “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” did for punctuation: made it noticeable for people who had no idea they were interested in such things. Your friends’ eyes may glaze over when you begin to regale them with the font-related trivia with which this book is packed. (What is the Woody Allen movie credits font? Windsor.) If that should happen, recommend that they read Mr. Garfield too.

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fonts (class, styles) for new academic journal

I am involved with starting a new academic economics and finance journal. Thus, the world is our oyster---we can choose whatever looks we want to choose. Since I have a role, LaTeX is going to be our typesetting system.

Now, I want my authors to be able to install the latest TexLive and be able to format the article themselves, although we will do this for many of them. This means that I do not want any fonts or other required inputs that are proprietary, and that require anything unusual. It should work out of the box.

For fonts, I need a full complement of math with the text. cmr is out. Even though it is now scalable, it just has acquired too much of a "texy working paper" look at this point. I am thinking mathptmx. I also like the idea of sticking to one font for headings and text, if only because this won't create a garish amateurish look, and I can see myself committing a faux pas if I had to mix fonts. TUG lucida is out, not because it requires a purchase, but because it requires an installation. Would the TeX Gyre fonts offer some good suitable alternative to mathptmx? Again, I need something fairly complete.

What is considered to be the most sane BiBTeX bst format? (we use harvard.sty in economics.)

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AFP Consortium Announces New Version of AFP Architecture

The leading architecture for transaction printing has been updated to improve the operational efficiency of printing environments, while providing a higher level of interoperability among AFP products, including carry for the latest fonts, images and graphics. Most transaction documents and sensitive or critical communications associated with financial, insurance, sell, utilities and healthcare institutions worldwide use AFP amounting to tens of millions of mail pieces produced daily.

The new exchange set IS/3 are designed to provide the functionality required for today's complex production printing environments. Support for IS/3 will enable smoother addition across the elements of a printing system -- including formatters, servers, transforms, printers, AFP viewers and archive systems -- with less customization and faster time to manufacture with any given configuration. The enhanced interoperability of IS/3-compliant components will allow customers to significantly cut the price and time involved in configuring, installing and operating multi-vendor AFP systems.

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IS/3 features inclusive color support, including process and spot colors, ICC-based color management, and industry-standard image file formats such as TIFF and JPEG. IS/3 also includes support for industry-standard OpenType fonts and Unicode-based data encodings.

"With this new version, we are cementing AFP's position as the standard presentation architecture for monochrome and color variable-data production printing," said Harry Lewis, chairman of the AFP grouping. "By improving interoperability of AFP solutions across vendors, we reassure customers that they can design their print environment using best-of-breed AFP components from multiple vendors with self-confidence that they will work together easily and efficiently."

Font Creator

Facing off with Fonts

This request from an author whose book I was coordinating a few years ago opened my eyes to the psychology of fonts. She wanted to send questionnaires to a bunch of people and, since she was far off in Russia, wanted me to do the sending.

“I find that this is a most readable font and people always reply when I send it in this font,” she explained.

That set me thinking about fonts and the visual persuasion strategy. Just as we respond better to some handwriting, is it true that we respond better to some fonts? Father Google said yes. 

And, just as handwriting can tell us a lot about the writer, can the computer fonts tell us anything about the person using them? 

Oh yes, said Father Google again, throwing an old study The psychology of Fonts, by Dr Aric Sigman, commissioned by Lexmark Printers, at me.

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Windows Vista, 7 - Install New Fonts And Manage

Windows 7 has a wide range of fonts but they are still not enough for some users. Unfortunately, a command for installing more fonts is not available in the font folder at first glance.

In order to configure fonts, click 'Appearance and Personalization' in the Control Panel and then 'Fonts'. In this view, every entry already has a mini preview of the relevant font.

There are several options for installing new font types. It is usually enough to copy the new font file into the folder 'C:\Windows\Fonts'. The disadvantage of this method is that only the file name and not the font name is later displayed in applications. It is thus better to select one of the following procedures: Open the folder with the desired font file in Windows Explorer. Right click the file entry and select the context command 'Install'. Even the preview window of the font type which opens on double clicking has an 'Install' button. A click on it integrates the font into the system.

The other option is to open the Fonts folder and press [Alt]. Windows then displays the menu bar. Click 'New Font' in the 'File' menu, navigate to where the new font is saved and open the file. (Works in Windows Vista)

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New Font Monarcha

Monarcha is a serifed type family with a baroque style influence. Its roman versions are slightly skewed and its italics have unusual calligraphic features. The contrast between thick and thin strokes is relatively smaller than in conventional serif fonts. These characteristics, coupled with its rounded shapes, give Monarcha a special fluidity and texture.

The family consists of 8 styles, 4 weights in Book, Regular, SemiBold and Bold, plus related italic versions. These OpenType format fonts have extended character sets to support Western European CE, Baltic and Turkish languages.

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New Corporate & Broadcast Focus in ready2go Collection 4

Features:

• Over 150 different projects, including alternate color looks, rotate camera motions and additional animated content, offer a wide variety of looks to handle most types of productions.
• Complete customization with the ability to take projects apart, change colors and fonts, add your own elements, turn on and off layers or alter timing.
• Fresh edit-friendly segments provided for most of the full length project templates make the task of customizing the projects even easier than before. Build your own version of the project by placing template segments on your timeline to generate your desired edit or extend the length of each part to up to 15 seconds.
• 24 matching ready-to-use HD & SD animated Swipes give you the perfect tradition way to transition between project segments.
• Includes 10 of the most commonly used size formats for HD and SD projects so no matter if you work in Full HD, 720P, PAL, or NTSC you have access to the right project for every condition.
• Unlike projects from other sources, you receive ongoing and in-depth training through DJTV that shows you exactly how to use and customize the projects.
• Handpicked Bitstream fonts that graphically "fit" with each template are included with the package. You can easily alternate with any font on your system.
• Nothing is hidden or not possible to get at. You have entire access to the project just as the animator designed it. No matter what your skill stage you can learn something new by analyzing how the projects are set up before customizing them.
• Developed using only the effects and features built into After Effects for seamless compatibility. No third-party plug-ins required.

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