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Microsoft sued for use of Hadassah font in violation of copyright

Hanna Tal, daughter of Henry Friedlander, the creator of the Hadassah font, has sued Microsoft over their versions of the font: Hadassah Monotype and Hadassah Guttmann.

There must be some arcane law at work here, because huge swaths of typefaces have always been knocked off (raise your hand if you remember Helios).

A Lawsuit Against Microsoft for Copyrights Violation – Jewish Business News.

typemaniac

2 Comments

  1. Tetterode (also known as Lettergieterij Amsterdam or Typefoundry Amsterdam) contracted Henri Friedlaender in 1955 for the design of the Hadassah typefaces. The fonts were released in 1958 and Friedlaender was paid royalties for these fonts during 18 years. That was part of the contract. Tetterode owned the rights of Hadassah and sublicensed these fonts to several other font suppliers. During the 18 years Friedlaender was paid royalties (a percentage of the sales price) on the hot metal Tetterode fonts and a lower percentage on the sublicensed fonts (for example the Hadassah fonts for the Intertype linecasting machines). He never got paid royalties lateron because he was no longer entitled to get royalties. Tetterode made several sublicense contracts for the Hadassah fonts in the ninetees. They could do that because they owned the legal rights. In 2000 Tetterode transferred the whole type collection to Linotype in Germany. From that moment Linotype owned the rights. In 2006 Linotype was sold to Monotype and transferred the right of al their typefaces to Monotype. Monotype owns Bitstream, Linotype and Ascender. In the past Monotype, Linotype, Bitstream and Ascender licensed and sublicensed a huge collection of fonts to Microsoft. I worked 37 years at Tetterode and was responsible for the transfer of the typeface collection to Linotype. i know all the details and gave all important facts and documents to the district court in Jerusalem. It seems that Hannah Tal tries to forget these details.

  2. There is one typo: the contract between Typefoundry Tetterode Amsterdam and designer Henri Friedlaender was signed in 1950. Not 1955. It took Friedlaender 8 years to finalize the two weights of the Hadassah.

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