Font infringement, claimed millions! Can you afford these costs?

In recent years, font infringement claims have occurred frequently, including designers and self-media people using special fonts on trademarks, LOGOs, printed materials, articles, videos, etc. Many times the infringers may not be aware of their actions I received a letter from a font infringement lawyer.

Example:

In 2007, Founder sued Blizzard for copyright infringement of the "World of Warcraft" font and claimed 100 million yuan. In 2009, the additional claim amount was 408 million yuan. In 2012, Blizzard was awarded 2 million yuan in compensation;

In 2008, Fangzheng sued Guangzhou Procter & Gamble’s Rejoice and other products for using Qianzi characters on the packaging, and claimed 1.34 million yuan, but ultimately lost the lawsuit;

In 2012, the popular film "33 Days of Broken Relationship", due to the use of unauthorized fonts in the title and subtitles, finally paid the copyright owner 20,000 yuan;

In 2016, "Nine-story Demon Tower" was sued for 510,000 yuan for using 7 characters in an unauthorized font;

...

In addition to losing money, the promotional materials and promotional texts that have been issued need to be withdrawn, and companies and brands will have to bear considerable economic losses and impacts.

Infringements mainly focus on two aspects: one is font infringement. The second is a single font infringement.

Fonts: Seal script, official script, and willow script in the art of calligraphy, as well as regular script and Song font that can be selected in daily office software are all fonts.

Font library: The font library designer designs according to the basic strokes and structures of individual characters, and then automatically adjusts the scanned digital outline information and then manually corrects the characters. Finally, it is integrated into a font library, and the font library product is produced through inspection and other processes.

If an enterprise uses a non-free font for commercial purposes, it needs to authorize the font copyright company and pay the usage fee.

Commercial use of fonts includes the use of fonts as visual design elements for the purpose of direct or indirect profit, reproduction, distribution, exhibition, screening, information network dissemination, broadcasting and other behaviors of using fonts.

Article 47 of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates:

Anyone who commits any of the following infringements shall, according to the circumstances, bear civil responsibilities such as stopping the infringement, eliminating the impact, making an apology, and compensating for losses:

(1) Publishing works without the permission of the copyright owner;

...

(7) Using other people's works, should pay remuneration but not paid;

...

Article 48 of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates:

Anyone who commits any of the following infringements shall, according to the circumstances, bear civil responsibilities such as stopping the infringement, eliminating the impact, making an apology, and compensating for losses; if the public interest is damaged at the same time, the copyright administrative department may order the cessation of the infringement and confiscate the illegal gains. Confiscate and destroy infringing copies, and may impose a fine; if the circumstances are serious, the copyright administrative department may also confiscate the materials, tools, equipment, etc. mainly used to make infringing copies; if a crime is constituted, criminal responsibility shall be investigated according to law:

(1) Reproducing, distributing, performing, showing, broadcasting, compiling, or disseminating his works to the public through information networks without the permission of the copyright owner, except as otherwise provided for in this Law;

...

Article 49 of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates:

Where copyright or rights related to copyright are infringed, the infringer shall pay compensation according to the actual loss of the obligee; if the actual loss is difficult to calculate, compensation may be paid according to the illegal income of the infringer. The amount of compensation should also include the reasonable expenses paid by the obligee to stop the infringement.

If the actual loss of the obligee or the illegal income of the infringer cannot be determined, the people's court shall, according to the circumstances of the infringement, award a compensation of less than 500,000 yuan.

Article 55 of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China:

Copyright disputes can be mediated, or they can apply to an arbitration institution for arbitration according to the written arbitration agreement reached by the parties or the arbitration clause in the copyright contract.

If the parties have neither a written arbitration agreement nor an arbitration clause in the copyright contract, they may directly file a lawsuit in the people's court.

Article 36 of the Regulations for the Implementation of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China:

Where there is an infringement listed in Article 48 of the Copyright Law, and at the same time damages the public interest, and the illegal business turnover is more than 50,000 yuan, the copyright administrative department may impose a fine of 1 to 5 times the illegal business turnover; no If the illegal business volume or the illegal business volume is less than 50,000 yuan, the copyright administrative department may impose a fine of 250,000 yuan or less according to the seriousness of the circumstances.

Although the above laws and regulations regulate the conditions for identifying infringement and how to bear the responsibility.

However, due to the limitations of other conditions, when considering the amount of compensation, the court will comprehensively consider:

The infringer’s commercial use of fonts and other copyrighted art works on the involved product, the duration of use, the impact of the use of relevant words in packaging and decoration on the sales of the product, the product’s sales price, sales scope and other factors , so as to make a final judgment.

(1) Do not download so-called free fonts for use

Don’t use fonts downloaded for free from the Internet at will. Please check when you use them. Generally, font download sites will also indicate when publishing free fonts:This font is collected on the Internet. If you need commercial use, please contact the manufacturer. Buy, do not take such statements as air.

(2) Be sure to check before commercial fonts

1. Specify the query object. Determine what type of font an enterprise or individual wants to use, and clarify the copyright owner of the font. The following are more commonly used font recognition platforms:

Seeking Font Network: http://www.qiuziti.com/

Fontke.com: https://www.fontke.com/

360 check fonts: https://fonts.safe.360.cn/

2. Check font copyright manufacturers to confirm whether it is commercially available and the scope of related authorization.

You must check the clear copyright and authorized use information on its official website, and remember not to trust the "free commercial use" marked on the non-official website. If there is no obvious free license commercial information on the official website, it is best to call the manufacturer.

(3) Original processing and design of fonts

Combined with various current design software, drawing tools and other platforms, fonts can be creatively processed and designed, which can not only make fonts full of originality, but also avoid font infringement to a certain extent.

(4) Obtain font commercial authorization

The use of non-free commercial fonts in commercial activities requires the authorization of the font copyright owner.

For example, Microsoft Office software has obtained some font authorization from Founder, so when it is only used and viewed on the computer, it does not involve font infringement.

However, if you want to export fonts in Microsoft Office software for commercial use, you need to obtain additional commercial authorization from the font copyright owner. We must also follow the principle of "authorize first, then use".

(5) Use free commercial fonts

Here are some free fonts for you:

Siyuan black body, Siyuan soft black body, Siyuan true black body, Siyuan Song typeface, Mu Yao soft pen handwriting typeface, Pangmen Zhengdao headline typeface, sharp word mantra typeface, Siyuan typeface, Siyuan Song typeface, Siyuan soft typeface, Han Yixian two typeface, Zaku High-End Black, Zaku Happy, Zaku Qingke Butter, Zaku Literary, Yang Rendong Bamboo Stone, Seto, Pangmen Zhengdao Title, and Alibaba Pratt.

AlibabaPuhuiti fontOverview

Developing such a huge font library is as difficult as a developer developing a piece of software.

Every word needs to be outlined and adjusted stroke by stroke by the designer, and every piece of software needs to be typed out line by line by the developer.

We should respect every labor achievement, and at the same time, hereby remind everyone to protect your products, register trademarks, apply for software, patents, etc., and provide evidence for rights protection when necessary.

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