NBC Sued For Over $2 Million... For Infringing On A Font

from the yes,-a-font dept

NBC Universal is one of the more hard core supporters of stronger copyright law, with regular statements from execs that border on ridiculous -- such as the time its General Counsel, Rick Cotton, tried to convince the world that file sharing was harming corn farmers, because people ate less popcorn while watching pirated movies (seriously...). However, apparently even the "copyright maximalist" lawyers and lobbyists over at NBC Unversal slip up once in a while. The company is being sued for over $2 million for infringing on a font (yes, a font). Of course, I think it's ridiculous that any font company thinks it's owed $2 million for such things (yes, font developers, I know you have strong feelings on this, but we've discussed them in the past). For all I care, NBC Universal should be able to do whatever it wants with the fonts it has. But, for a company that seems to tilt so far towards the copyright maximalist position, it seems worth noting when it faces a lawsuit for violating copyrights.

Now, in an ideal world, it would be a teachable moment, where those lobbyists and lawyers might finally realize that in a modern digital world, perhaps copyright maximalism doesn't make much sense (as if it ever did)... but that seems unlikely.

Filed Under: copyright, font
Companies: nbc universal