Grafx2 Fonts - are they free to use?

[krbri]

What is the legal rule on fonts. I would like to use some of the bitmap fonts that are in the Grafx2 package. How can I find out if they are free to use? Also, I need to alter the fonts. If you are a game developer, and you encountered something like this before, please let me know what you can.

[Gil]

Most fonts are not free to use. If you can't find a license, chances are very large they're not free.

[yrizoud]

I made sure to include in Grafx2 only fonts that can be :
- freely distributed : whenever the Grafx2 archive is copied, or the program is installed
- freely used : You can paint text in your images without sharing copyright with the font creator or having to comply with a specific license.

The fonts with prefixes "PF" are made by Yusuke Kamiyamane, license  : "These fonts can be used free for any personal or commercial projects."
Your installation of Grafx2 should include a file doc/PF_fonts.txt which acknowledges the author and states the license : http://pulkomandy.tk/projects/GrafX2/browser/trunk/doc/PF_fonts.txt
The ugly 8pxfont.png I made myself from scratch I just checked, and the GNU public license is not perfect for fonts, so I hereby release 8pxfont.png to the public domain : Anybody can do anything with it.

[Ai]

Yrizoud: Creative Commons family of licenses is generally regarded as a more appropriate counterpart to the GPL for art. Deviantart, OpenGameArt, etc, provide it as an option.
http://creativecommons.org/choose/ has a really simple license chooser.
(Of course, there is nothing wrong with releasing things into public domain, but if you want to do something in-between, like 'can be used in any work, provided proper attribution is given' (CC-BY-4.0), CC licenses make that easy.)

[yrizoud]

I know there are many choices, but public domain simplifies a lot of things.
IMO, attribution is not easy for images. It's not as if each image on the web had a tooltip window where you could display :

copyright L. Da Vinci, license CC-BY-4.0
Typeface copyright J. Gutemberg, license xxxxx
Palette is DB16, copyright R. Fhager, license 'Feel free to use'

[Gil]

Btw, you can't release something in the public domain. Most countries don't have rules for that. You should use CC0, which is a license tailor made to be as close to public domain as possible in as many countries as possible. On top of that, you get some basic clauses, like liability, with it. Someone could seriously break a nail using those fonts I guess :p

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

[yrizoud]

Aww you're right, the law of my country doesn't let me put anything in public domain unless I died before 1945.
I hereby grant the CC0 license on every work that I previously declared as "in public domain".

[Gil]

Copyright law is super wonkatonk.