i don't want to be argumentative
Yes but Mr. Hunter and his estate was compensated by companies who seek a fair return on the investment they made when they compensated Mr. Hunter or his heirs.
If one didn't create it the chances are that some one else did and hopes to be fairly compensated for their efforts. That same expectation is reasonable on the part of those who legally acquired rights to the designs.
I am truly sorry for any seeming contentiousness in this thread. But there is some misinformation concerning copyright law concerning fonts. The estate of Dard Hunter received nothing for the artistic content of his fonts. The reason for this is the appearance or artistic content of fonts is not copyrightable. That is, they(foundries) didn't pay because they didn't have to. This was established in 1976 before the onslaught of computers into the graphic design field. The only part of computer fonts that is copyrightable is the program - the Post Script stuff or the True Type stuff.
This has been tested in the courts a number of times, and much to the artists dismay the foundries are free to copy fonts exactly as to appearance. Theoretically any one of us could take a font - convert it to outlines - change a few nodes - and make it our own. this has led to other court cases between font foundries. They have had similar results.
To be sure, font foundries can give value added to fonts - usable format - high quality rendering,accessibility, etc. Some have artistic staffs that develop new fonts. But they also take other people's creations - put them into a file and prosper off of them. I am not condoning or defending the system - just describing it.
So I standby my earlier characterization of some foundries as ghoulish.
Also a note on cloned fonts. If you ever have used the font packages in Corel, Adobe, Flexi, or other similar programs you have most probably used cloned fonts. Even if you paid a foundry 20-30-70-200 dollars for a font - they may very well be cloned from a font from a different source.
Attempts to protect the font artist have not been adequate. I guess the thing I'm saying is the money you pay to a font foundry probably does not benefit the font artist.
I have many reference sources on what I am saying. Most probably explain it better than I could. A good starting point could be
about
I have been dismayed by the laws concerning fonts and copyrights. It isn't right but I didn't create the system.
If anyone wants or needs any more references they could email me
thesignguy@roadrunner.com