Newsletter
COPYRIGHT IN COMPUTER SEAL-CARVING FONTS
With regard to the question whether Chi-nese-character fonts used for computerized seal (chop) carving are works eligible for protection under the Copyright Law, certain courts have held that seals produced by computerized carv-ing are not expressions of personal experience and intellect and do not possess individual dis-tinctiveness or aesthetic value, and that they, therefore, cannot enjoy copyright protection. But in a 2001 copyright infringement case, the Supreme Court held that Article 3 Paragraph 1 of the Copyright Law merely defines a "work" as a creation within a literary, scientific, artistic or other academic domain; it does not impose re-strictions as to the tools that may be employed by an author in creating a work, or as to the medium on which it is fixed. With the advance of science and technology, computers are now widely used to perform acts of drawing and writing. When a person draws with a computer drawing program, and operates a light pen or mouse to effect sketching, coloration and writing actions, he must still rely on his own experience and inspi-ration; the computer cannot make judgments on his behalf. Such an activity is indeed the ex-pression of thought or emotion, and cannot be held not to be creative merely because a com-puter is used.