Copyright Etc.

Heres a good topic I think to round out my blog posts.Copyright and intellectual property. Sensitive material to be sure, but what is going too far to avoid infringement? There is a lot of inventions and so forth out there that people have taken and improved upon, so where does it begin to cross the line into infringement when someone is trying to improve on something. Now take Bill Gates, Arial and Helvetica fonts, and look at it closely. Supposedly Bill didn't want to pay licensing rights for Helvetica and had some graphic artists create a font that was close, but far enough off to avoid infringement. Some call this theft, I call it innovation. He saw a way to maximize his profits, while avoiding infringement, which I think is very innovative. Now the fonts look very close to each other, but they aren't exact, and therefor unique, so I think its a good deal for Bill. Is it right or wrong? Sure you could cite ethics and what not, but me, I just see a guy who found a way to build a mousetrap cheaper than the other guy. Its not necessarily a better one, but it does the same job for less money, so I think that its a good thing. Without innovation, creativity, and a spark of inspiration, then the world may as well quit turning, because there will be no more advancement or progress...might as well go back to stone tools and wearing furs instead of clothes.
Now, if that were all true it would make for a hell of a story, but I think some Bill Gates bashers owe him a great big huge mammoth apology for believing he paid someone to clone Helvetica for his own selfish reasons.
Ariel wasn't even invented for Microsoft! Firstly let me link you this website that I have known about and been saving for this one special moment here. Arial vs Helvetica
Now let me quote the author of the site.

Arial
"Designed in 1982 by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders for Monotype (not Microsoft), it’s classified as Neo Grotesque, was originally called Sonoran San Serif, and was designed for IBM’s bitmap font laser printers. It was first supplied with Windows 3.1 (1992) and was one of the core fonts in all subsequent versions of Windows until Vista, when to all intents and purposes, it was replaced with Calibri."

and....
"What it’s wrong to do is criticize Arial as a clone or rip-off of Helvetica. If Arial is a rip-off of Helvetica, then Helvetica is a rip-off of Akzidenz Grotesk; or we could simply say that they are both rip-offs of earlier Grotesque faces. The whole rip-off debate is a rather pointless one, I feel. Every face should be considered on its own merit. (We don’t criticize a daughter for looking like her mother). And, if you want to criticize Arial (it certainly has its faults), then do so, not because everyone else does, but do so with your own critical eye."

So, as we can all see, the Arial/Helvetica debate is a moot point and not worth debating. At least for me at any rate....