Can I use a texture with rendered "Helvetica Neue" characters without buying a license? [closed]

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Closed 7 years ago.

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I have rendered a PNG with the iPhone system fount "Helvetica Neue" to use as OpenGL Texture in my iPhone App.

Now I want to port the App to the Android platform.

Do I need any type of license to use the same texture there as well?

Thanks, any help would be appreciated

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It's an image not a font so you should be worried about the license for the image; the license of the font is irrelevant.

If you own the font license and created the image you can do what you want. If you are using someone else's image abide by the license for that image.

Fonts are software which in this case has been used to create an image. So it's like asking if you need a Photoshop license to use and image that someone else created in Photoshop.

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The best answer we can give is "No, but maybe yes. Depending."

Let me expand a little.
In general, fonts and font (typeface) designs are uncopyrightable. Most font licensing occurs on the honour system. However, the companies that sell fonts (foundries) would prefer you to think of them as a program, since as a sequence of TrueType or Postscript instructions they could perhaps be thought of as a program.

So the first conculsion we could reach is that since you originally had a license to use Helventica Neue, a "computer program", you are perfectly within your rights to distribute your own work (the GL texture) in your other apps.

However, the fact that you ask us this and not a lawyer heavily implies that a lawsuit or even a "cease and desist" could be potentially disastrous to you as a presumably sole/independent developer?
So perhaps it is worth avoiding the (miniscule) risk and buying the appropriate typeface for what is presumably not very much money (looks like $30-50 online) ?
Or alternately, rerendering the texture in a Free typeface instead?

Sorry for waffling a bit, but unless the iPhone SDK came with a license agreement for the system fonts then I don't think we can give a firm answer.