This font belongs to computer software, a computer program specified in Item (1) of Article 3 of the Regulations on the Protection of Computer Software, and a work in the sense of copyright law.
Computer fonts with certain originality are generally classified as works of art, thus constituting works protected by copyright law. If the font you use itself is not protected by copyright, even if it is original by others, it is not infringement if you use it.
It can be obtained through the following situations:
20 17 Peking university founder found that the nine words "cereal nutritious oatmeal" displayed on the packaging of a product of Zhou shunfa company used the rough and simplified form of founder without authorization, which infringed its copyright, so he sued Zhou shunfa company to the intermediate people's court of Shijiazhuang city, Hebei province.
From March 2065438 to March 2008, Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court held that Founder Series (Fine Money, Medium Money and Coarse Money) is a font library adapted by Founder of Peking University, and its font design has a unique artistic style, which has the characteristics of works of art in the copyright law. However, the copyright of single words should be consistent with Founder Series and enjoy copyright, and the defendant constitutes an act of copyright infringement.
Subsequently, Zhou Shunfa Company refused to accept the first-instance judgment and appealed to Hebei High Court.
After hearing the case, the Higher People's Court of Hebei Province held that the focus of the dispute in this case was: whether Qian Zizi belongs to an artistic work in the sense of copyright law; Whether the behavior of Zhou Shunfa Company constitutes infringement.
After trial, the court held that although the strokes and structures of Chinese characters belong to the public domain, and their design space is quite limited, the qianzi characters involved in the case are based on the basic strokes of Chinese characters, and the basic strokes (horizontal, vertical, curved, hooked, etc.) are adapted in terms of thickness, length, radian and artistic connection between strokes, forming a complete font system that is obviously different from the existing public domain characters and strokes.
At the same time, originality is not outstanding, although individual characters such as "five" involved in it are investigated separately. However, if we look at the whole font, the line characteristics of its characters and strokes are in the same strain as other words in the font, and it does not affect the artistic beauty and originality of other words.
If the originality and artistic aesthetic feeling are obvious, founder's money-style characters will constitute works of art stipulated by the copyright law. The defendant can use other free fonts to achieve the purpose of production and sales, and the strange characters involved are not the only font expression.
To sum up, the court found that Zhou Shunfa's behavior constituted infringement, and the compensation per word was about 5,555 yuan.
Through these two cases, we can sum up three points:
1. Judge whether the font is original or not by the thickness, length, radian and radical ratio of the font strokes.
2. Original fonts with unique artistic beauty will be protected by copyright law as works of art. ..
3. If there is no obvious difference between the infringing font and the copyright owner's font in terms of the overall structure of the font, the proportion of radicals, the thickness of strokes, the selection of straightness, etc., it can be considered that the font is infringing.
Extended data:
Chinese printed fonts and their characters can be divided into four categories:
1, fonts that have exceeded the legal protection period of copyright no longer enjoy copyright property rights. For example, traditional fonts such as bold, regular script, song style and imitation song style.
2. Fonts improved on the basis of traditional fonts, but the degree of improvement has not reached the height of originality. These Chinese fonts and their characters do not enjoy copyright property rights according to law.
3. On the basis of traditional fonts, the improvement degree has reached a high degree of originality. If these fonts are still within the legal protection period of copyright, they will enjoy copyright property rights.
4. Innovative and highly original new fonts, such as "Founder Money Style" in Founder v. Procter & Gamble's copyright infringement case, "Hanyi Xiuying Style" in Hanyi Company v. Shuangfei Company's copyright infringement case, and "Jing Lei Style" created by Xu. During the legal protection period of copyright, the original characters of these Chinese fonts still enjoy copyright property rights according to law.
People's Network-Although the font is small, the copyright is big.