How to determine the copyright of advertising fonts
Zhang Haishan, the creator of the font, sued Guangzhou Huamei medical beauty hospital Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Huamei Company) for allegedly infringing the copyright of the fine arts works of "Zhang Haishan sharp harmonic style" in its outdoor advertisements. After trial, the court of first instance held that the eight characters involved in the case constituted art works, and Huamei Company used the fonts substantially similar to those in the font database involved without authorization, thus infringing the copyright of Zhang Haishan. In the second instance of the case, Guangzhou intellectual property court held that the expression form of the eight "Zhang Haishan sharp harmonic" Chinese characters involved in the case did not have distinctive features compared with the basic strokes of the fine arts in the public domain, did not meet the unique aesthetic requirements, and did not constitute a fine arts work in the sense of copyright law. Zhang Haishan said that Huamei Company violated its fine arts The claim of copyright of works is not tenable. Accordingly, the judgment of the court of first instance was revoked.
From the famous artist Xu Jinglei to founder Jinglei, to jingbairan handwritten font purchased by font library, the commercial value created by unique original font can not be underestimated, and the copyright disputes caused by this are often of high concern. In such disputes, most of the obligees advocate the copyright of font works of fine arts. However, since the objects related to font are divided into several categories, such as single word, font, font library and font library software, to judge whether a single word constitutes a work of Fine Arts in the sense of copyright law, specific case analysis is needed.
Use of fonts to raise a lawsuit
In December 2011, Zhang Haishan completed the creation of "Zhang Haishan sharp harmonic". In April 2015, Zhang Haishan registered the copyright of art works on the font, and the font sample contains 8 characters involved in the case. In October 2017, Huamei Company published an outdoor advertisement on the exterior wall of the business site, printed with the words of "the 12th International (Guangzhou) plastic surgery Festival", "Guangzhou Huamei plastic surgery expansion and upgrading" and so on. After comparison, Zhang Haishan believed that the eight words "the 12th International" and "Guangzhou" in the advertisement were basically the same as the words in the font library works, suspected of constituting copyright infringement, so a lawsuit sued Huamei Company to Tianhe District People's Court of Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province (hereinafter referred to as Tianhe court).
Tianhe court held that although Huamei Company had made some changes to the strokes of "international", "state" in the alleged infringing words, it still showed the characteristics of the font composed of straight line and tangent angle, which were substantially similar in composition. Huamei Company, as the publisher of the advertisement involved in the case, used in the advertising without authorization in the font Bank of "Zhang Haishan sharp harmonic style" It constitutes substantially similar characters and copyright infringement.
Huamei Company is not satisfied, and appeals to Guangzhou intellectual property court.
In the second instance of the case, the parties had a heated debate about whether the eight characters in the involved case "Zhang Haishan sharp harmonic body" constituted the art works protected by the copyright law.
After hearing, Guangzhou intellectual property court held that the characteristics of "Zhang Haishan sharp harmonic style" Chinese characters are: all are completed by cutting corners with straight lines, without any stroke with radian or curvature. It can be seen that the form of the font is not distinctive compared with the basic strokes of the art characters in the public domain, and does not meet the original requirements of higher unique aesthetics, especially the three Chinese characters with few strokes and simple structure, namely "ten", "two" and "wide". Therefore, the eight "Zhang Haishan sharp harmonic" Chinese characters involved in the case do not constitute art works in the sense of copyright law, and Zhang Haishan's claim that Huamei Company infringes its right to copy art works lacks basis.
It is worth noting that in the second judgment of the case, Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court pointed out that under the premise of meeting the requirements of originality, the words in the computer font can constitute the art works in the sense of copyright law and should be protected by law. However, in view of the dual characteristics of both aesthetic and practical tools, the purpose of font creation is to meet the needs of computer using Chinese characters. Therefore, the font of computer font library belongs to the intellectual achievement of close combination of works and tools. When the font of computer font library is used as a work of art for protection, its originality should have a high unique aesthetic Requirements, that is to say, the protected font should be obviously different from the existing public font. Only the font that reflects a higher unique aesthetic and can be clearly distinguished from the existing font can be considered as art works to be protected.
Individual judgment of single word recognition
Generally speaking, the objects related to font or font can be divided into four categories: single word, font, font library and font library software. They are different in the ownership of copyright objects, which is also an important reason why different courts have different judgment results in the copyright disputes related to font.
Xiong Qi, Vice Dean of Law School of Huazhong University of science and technology, further explained in an interview with the reporter of China intellectual property news that the so-called character library is a collection of Chinese character fonts designed and manufactured according to certain standards and composed of characters and symbols with specific styles; the software of the character library is a collection of data and information of Chinese character fonts that can be executed by computers under the computer language. Corresponding to the object of law, character library belongs to database, while character library software belongs to computer program. Font can be regarded as a whole composed of a series of characters and symbols with a specific style. The value of font lies in the aesthetic appearance reflected in the way of single words. Therefore, font and single character are two inseparable objects. Font is the generalization of aesthetic feeling and style reflected by each single character. Single character is the way that font is perceived by the outside world and belongs to the carrier of specific style of font.
Specific to whether the single words and fonts belong to works in the sense of copyright law, Xiong Qi said that there are indeed differences in judicial practice on this issue. Different courts have made different judgments on specific cases. Many courts believe that if the single words of the font and the expression of the font are original, they can constitute works of art protected by copyright law. However, there are also courts that only recognize fonts or glyphs as a whole as works, but the words in them cannot be protected by copyright law because they cannot rise to the height of art works.
"According to the above analysis, the styles of the same Chinese characters in different fonts are different. However, not every single character can be reflected by a specific style, such as' one ',' two 'and' Ten 'Chinese characters. Their strokes and structures are very simple, and it is difficult to reflect a specific style. Therefore, a word that can become a work of art needs to be able to reflect the creative style of the creator and have certain strokes and structures. " Xiong Qi believes that from the perspective of judicial trial, to determine whether a single word belongs to a work, we should start from the definition of art works in the copyright law, judge the elements that can show the style of Chinese characters, such as the characteristics of strokes and structures of Chinese characters, and compare them with the fonts that are already in the public domain and have no style, and comprehensively consider whether the single word can reflect A style of beauty.
So, to avoid disputes caused by the use of words, what should users do? In this regard, Xiong Qi suggested that, from the perspective of single character creators, we should ensure that the font style is completely original, rather than simply imitating other people's fonts. From the user's point of view, when using a single word, the user should have the awareness of respecting the right, obtain the permission of the copyright owner in time, review the font design obtained from the third party before use, and stipulate the relevant terms in the contract with the third party. In case of infringement, the user can recover from the contract party responsible for designing the font. From the judicial point of view, China's courts should establish a unified trial standard, and establish general rules on the relationship between fonts and words.
