14 DAY TRIAL // Three fonts are in the middle of one of the heftiest lawsuits against NBC this year. Font Bureau, a Boston-based graphics agency has filed a complaint against TV giant NBC after it wrongfully used the licenses purchased for three of its fonts (Antenna, Interstate, and Bureau Grotesque). Besides copyright infringement, the agency also claimed and filed charges against NBC for trademark infringement, breach of contract, unfair competition, and violations of New York's general business law. All in all, Font Bureau estimated its losses to about $2 million in damages.
All the troubles for NBC began when they purchased licenses for three fonts that were to be used in network and show promos on TV and on the web. What NBC representatives didn't realize was the fact that the acquired license was covering only usage on a single computer for the fonts. So, when the fonts probably got moved around in some production departments at NBC (for the promos and ads to be finalized), they got installed on more computers than the license covered.
Ok. This may seem like a misunderstanding and probably a company like Font Bureau, a well known design agency in the upper circles of the media industry, could have easily reached an agreement with NBC and keep it all under wraps. But it all gets strange from this point on the part of NBC.
It seems that Font Bureau has managed to search and find evidence that NBC did not only distribute copies of the fonts on various internal computers, but actually distributed several copies to third parties outside the company. Acting on this later development, Font Bureau filed a complaint against NBC for severe trademark infringement.
The agency is concerned that because of this illicit distribution of its products, they will have a harder time convincing other companies in acquiring licenses for the same fonts. And because of its excellent track-work with Microsoft, Apple, HP, Newsweek, Esquire and Rolling Stone, those fonts are some of the hottest downloads on pirate trackers and forums these days.
Even if hilarious in its essence, some little fonts may cause huge problems for NBC in the near future. Companies have long been faced with copyright problems when coming to software, but graphics and other digital products have been ignored by many firms. This lawsuit comes to publicize some of the more acute problems in the design and graphics area of the web, still an untouched heaven for piracy and various infringements.