I've seen several independent, low-budget movies over the past few weeks, and I've noticed that a good number of them seem to use the really basic fonts for titling and credits, rather than the ones that would add more to the overall effect of the movie. How do the copyright laws work regarding the use of a particular font in a film?
A lot of fonts are freeware, others you just buy the fontfile and that grants you licence to use it, graphics programs like Photoshop and Illustrator come with hundreds of good fonts.
It's also not always the font, cheap editors/titlers leave a horrible thick dark matte style line around the text or produce it very blocky and ugly, you really need to use a decent edit package and it can be handy to combine with Photoshop.
You can pick up second hand on Ebay, a lot of the software on there is cracked though, just be aware of that.
Steve Piper
Coffee Films
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Steve Piper
Coffee Films
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It's a bit more complicated than that. Those "horrible thick dark matte style lines" are often a feature--yes, A FEATURE--to keep the text readable. It all has to do with NTSC DV standards: you can't have solid red text without a matte line around it because it "smears" on TV screens (the same goes for green and blue to lesser extents), you can't have serifed or highly detailed text because of the interlace flicker they would produce, and you really SHOULDN'T have any text smaller than 20 point, because it becomes unreadable very quickly on some TV screens. That leaves: Arial, Geneva, Helvetica. Maybe Lucida Grande. At least, those are the fonts I usually stick to. Luckily, my next project will be in HD so I'll have a little more latitude in choosing fonts and such.
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Andrew Gingerich
Exploding Goldfish Films
Check out my vodcast on iTunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=96931870
and my blog at http://www.exgfilms.com
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Andrew Gingerich
Exploding Goldfish Films
Check out my blog at http://www.exgfilms.com
and my reel at http://portfolio.exgfilms.com
Thanks for the replies, but I wasn't as concerned with the visual quality of the fonts as I was with the actual legal use of them. I use Sony Vegas 6 to edit everything, and I've never had a problem with a thick dark matte style line as you said. Are you saying that if a font is freeware, I have full rights to use it in my projects? And how can I now if it's freeware, and what type of use license it has?
I really wouldn't worry about font licensing. Many fonts are freeware (I exclusively use fonts I don't have to pay for because there are plenty to choose from) and I believe the way font licensing works with commercial typefaces is that you pay a single fee to use a font for as long as you have it. I think.
Really, only the really big font vendors are going to make any attempts at legal action regarding unauthorized usage, and then I can't see them doing this in any realm other than that of big-time publishers.
Short answer: The font makers probably don't care how you use their typefaces, as long as you're not pirating and reselling them.
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Andrew Gingerich
Exploding Goldfish Films
Check out my vodcast on iTunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=96931870
and my blog at http://www.exgfilms.com
-----------------
Andrew Gingerich
Exploding Goldfish Films
Check out my blog at http://www.exgfilms.com
and my reel at http://portfolio.exgfilms.com
You can use fonts pretty freely without worry. In fact, it is questionable whether a font can even be copyrighted. Many people say that it can't. Here is an excerpt of the applicable law from the Code of Federal Regulations (Volume 37):
"The following are examples of works not subject to copyright and applications for registration of such works cannot be entertained: (...) typeface as typeface" 37 CFR 202.1(e).
House of Representatives report accompanied the new copyright law when passed in 1976: "The Committee has considered, but chosen to defer, the possibility of protecting the design of typefaces. A 'typeface' can be defined as a set of letters, numbers, or other symbolic characters, whose forms are related by repeating design elements consistently applied in a notational system and are intended to be embodied in articles whose intrinsic utilitarian function is for use in composing text or other cognizable combinations of characters. The Committee does not regard the design of typeface, as thus defined, to be a copyrightable 'pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work' within the meaning of this bill and the application of the dividing line in section 101." H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, 94th Congress, 2d Session at 55 (1976), reprinted in1978 U.S. Cong. and Admin. News 5659, 5668.
The U.S. Copyright Office holds that a bitmapped font is nothing more than a computerized representation of a typeface, and as such is not copyrightable."
Dan Rahmel
Author: "Nuts and Bolts Filmmaking"
Free scripts, templates, film glossary, and know-how,
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