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The proprietor of the site parachute.gr has in a different forum complained about TTF versions of his fonts being hacked and said to one member that he'd appreciate it if that member would buy his fonts instead of obtaining them in some unethical way.

However, perhaps someone can visit this page:

http://www.parachute.gr/fonts.aspx?Sample=1&FontStyleID=&FontFamilyID=53...

and tell me how the font "Muse" could not be so blatantly ripped off from Jos Buivenga's "Delicious." Which can clearly be seen in the lower case f, g, c, and s, and certainly seen in the remainder of the lower case letters. For that matter, with the exception of a few minor tweaks and added "serifs," the outlines are virtually identical.

Shameful.

virtually identical.

Are you alleging "point piracy", (i.e. file copying and modification), or just similarities of glyph shape?

That I believe I'll leave to the person comparing. Let's just say there are what one would call "similar" glyph shapes, and then there are identical glyph shapes with one being scaled horizontally perhaps 101 percent, or merely had a small serif slapped on it. As mentioned, download the pdf for Muse, find and download Delicious, and just do a cursory comparison. If it's within your moral structure, strip the Muse pdf, and open both fonts in any font creation program. It would be downright comical if it wasn't so nauseating. Somehow this doesn't strike me as being similar to copying helvetica and re-naming it helstetica.

Certainly, there are many similarities.

if you're going to make a serious accusation on a well-trafficked typography forum, you really should be a little bit more thorough, imo.

so maybe you could do a side-by-side, or onion-skinned comparison?

can you post the creation dates of the two fonts?

did you make any attempt to contact Parachute, or either designer and see what they had to say?

agreed, there are similarities, but if you are alleging point piracy, then show us what you have seen
and we can indeed make up our own minds.

Delicious
Muse

Curioustype: If it's within your moral structure, strip the Muse pdf, and open both fonts in any font creation program.

With moral structure intact and utterly unruffled by the journey near the Dark Side, here's a side-by-side comparison of the lowercase "g" from "Muse" and "Delicious" (no resizing involved, BTW).

The several instances of similarity are, to my eyes, disturbingly close.

Regards,
Ernie

Figures:

Sorry, but I just can’t let this one go unnoted, look at that "v" also.

In my opinion, they are way too close... something is not quite right here.

A follow up: Who did it first?

Mmm... This is the first time for me to see such a ripp-off thing. This is shameless contour hijacking. I started Delicious in 1994 and finished it in 1996. For what it's worth ... I can vouch for it that Delicious is completely my own thing.

This is not the first time such allegations have been leveled at Parachute.

To add some further proof, dating from the 31st March of 2004.

These kind of things really makes me sick.

Please let us know how you will proceed with this, Jos.

Jos, your current license seems to prohibit this type of thing, but has your license always been this restrictive? Looks like it may have been posted without restrictions in the past?

http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/delicious.html

In addition, there's no license text in the current download, not making any excuses but its easy for free fonts to end up in unintended places, and with no EULA it's a sitting duck.

I guess I have to take my loss on this one, Goran, and regard it as a wise lesson. As sii pointed out there's no license in the current download and it wasn't on the earliest Delicious page I clicked at the way back machine.

I wonder if an organization like the FDRC or ATypI couldn't reach out to starting-out freeware font designers more, by providing educational materials around font IP issues.

Of course some designers will be happy to put their stuff straight into the public domain with no strings attached, but having standard EULAs (from open source, like to OFL, through to more traditional EULAs) might help prevent heartbreak further down the line.

Something for us to talk about at next month's The Business of Type event (plug :-)).

Jos: there's no license in the current download and it wasn't on the earliest Delicious page I clicked at the way back machine

Nevertheless, there is a clear notation that shouldn't be ignored or taken lightly: "copyright" — which, unfortunately, appears to have been in this instance shamelessly disregarded.

As far as my knoweledge goes: the EULA can protect a font as a piece of software and copyright is just a way of mentioning that the (type) design is yours. Because copyrighting a font or type design is not treated the same in every country, what should (or could) I do?

It's one thing that they "borrowed" the design and "modified" it, but it's another to try and profit from it. Honestly, artist to artist, a collaborative effort should have been forged, and Jos should see part of whatever profit they make.

If Jos goes on a reclamation crusade, he could hurt the Parachute guys were it counts... in the pockets. Following them around the net and offering the original, all for a price that's hard to argue with. Could make some serious waves, and hurt some one's credibility.

But it's possible the Parachute boys just had a moment of ethical and moral lapse, and bringing it to their attention might be enough to set things right. Jos, you're a giving, talented artist and imitation is the best form of flattery, but you shouldn't be taken advantage of.

amen to that last one

>It’s one thing that they “borrowed” the design and “modified” it, but it’s another to try and profit from it.

Isn't that essentially how open source works? Many people out there believe that's how everything should work.

>Nevertheless, there is a clear notation that shouldn’t be ignored or taken lightly: “copyright”

True, the one font I looked at seemed to have a valid copyright string.

In the end I don't think it would hurt to contact the vendor.

A similarly close parallel investigation of other fonts offered by Parachute (a strikingly extensive catalogue) will probably answer many questions. There's no point contacting them, as they've been held accountable before and their position is known.

What is their position?

Is their position known? I'm afraid that I do not know it. I'd like to hear what they have to say.

I am not certain I understand how open source generates profit for anyone, but I claim ignorance because there could be an "Open Source" department store around the corner from me and I probably wouldn't know it.

As for the references to the other string regarding Parachute, I find this one much more provocative and specific. Furthermore, I believe there are a few posts from Parachute people in that string, which certainly now make for interesting reading. In fact I believe one comment was something to the effect of "Stealing? Us? Are you kidding?"

And for those who've followed this thread and still have yet to view both fonts up close, let me just reiterate here that this is not someone reflecting an obvious influence in three or four characters ... we're talking about virtually every character being identical, point for point. There aren't enough zeros in the Milky Way to quantify the odds of something like that taking place by accident.