# Who owns the Harry Potter typeface? Can you own a typeface?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 27, 2013, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542 "2013-02-27T19:21:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2013, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542/1 "2013-02-27T19:21:57Z")
Surely you’ve seen the Harry Potter typeface, with the jagged lightning style. And not just the title of the book, but the chapter titles as well. Somebody designed that – Scholastic? Bloomsbury? Somebody owns it. It’s so distinctive that surely no one can ever use it for anything but Harry Potter merchandise. But legally speaking, can a publisher reserve the rights to use a typeface?
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### Author:  [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2013, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542/2 "2013-02-27T19:27:10Z")
Fonts are copyrighted by their author/designer.
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### Author:  [@SpeedwayRyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpeedwayRyan)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2013, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542/3 "2013-02-27T19:45:57Z")
> [@a35362](#):
>
> Surely you’ve seen the Harry Potter typeface, with the jagged lightning style. And not just the title of the book, but the chapter titles as well. Somebody designed that – Scholastic? Bloomsbury? Somebody owns it. It’s so distinctive that surely no one can ever use it for anything but Harry Potter merchandise. But legally speaking, can a publisher reserve the rights to use a typeface?
Sure – despite the popularity of free fonts all over the internet, real “brand-name” typefaces that designers use can cost quite a bit of money to buy; and of course a company could design one and decide NOT to let people buy it. That said, I’m 100% sure there’s a knockoff of the Harry Potter font online somewhere (as is the case with most popular custom logo fonts, etc.). These are probably OK to use for a kid’s birthday party invitations, but I definitely wouldn’t use them on a commercial design.
Often times if just a logo is being created, it’s not even a “font” per se – if there’s only five letters in the logo, those are the only five that were drawn. In this case, if there’s a need to type out entire book titles and the like, there will be a custom font created.
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542/4 "2013-02-27T19:50:42Z")
These may be available free. [Here](http://www.fontspace.com/category/harry%20potter) is a page of allegedly free Harry Potter fonts (there is apparently more than one font associated with Harry Potter books, in addition to the lightning one).
And [here](http://davidocchino.com/portfolio/typography/hocus-pocus.html) is a link to the webpage of David Occhino Design, who purports to have designed these fonts. It’s a nice guide to the actual font choices used in Harry Potter stuff.
Roddy
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### Author:  [@SpeedwayRyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpeedwayRyan)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2013, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542/5 "2013-02-27T20:24:02Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#):
>
> These may be available free. [Here](http://www.fontspace.com/category/harry%20potter) is a page of allegedly free Harry Potter fonts (there is apparently more than one font associated with Harry Potter books, in addition to the lightning one).
Those are knockoffs, although knockoffs can be quite accurate sometimes.
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#):
>
> And [here](http://davidocchino.com/portfolio/typography/hocus-pocus.html) is a link to the webpage of David Occhino Design, who purports to have designed these fonts. It’s a nice guide to the actual font choices used in Harry Potter stuff.
I’m not so sure he’s even CLAIMING to have designed the original fonts for the Harry Potter series…from that site:
> [@](#):
>
> This professional-grade Harry Potter™ font is **based on** the lettering designs from the wildly popular fantasy books by J.K. Rowling and the motion picture series.
>
> Hocus Pocus™ comes in four styles that offer creative flexibility. Alternate capital and lowercase capital letters, integrated lightning bolts, sharp edges, twisted curves and unpredictable baselines work together to create a tone of mischief and magic.
>
> This typeface is\*\* inspired by existing designs \*\*with additional characters designed and digitized by David Occhino. Released in **December 2008**.
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### Author:  [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2013, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542/6 "2013-02-28T05:05:00Z")
Fonts cannot be copyrighted in the US. The computer code used to generate a particular typeface can be copyrighted, the usage of a proprietary (corporate) typeface might be carefully licensed, and the names can be trademarked. But the font itself cannot be copyrighted, and anyone is free to use a lookalike.
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### Author:  [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2013, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542/7 "2013-02-28T13:50:55Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#):
>
> Fonts cannot be copyrighted in the US. The computer code used to generate a particular typeface can be copyrighted, the usage of a proprietary (corporate) typeface might be carefully licensed, and the names can be trademarked. But the font itself cannot be copyrighted, and anyone is free to use a lookalike.
hence the popularity of “Times New Roman” vs “Times”.
IIRC, in the old days font factories would copyright the name and then spend a lot (back in the day) of time arguing whether two fonts were truly the same or enough different to deserve different names.
IOW, what Mr. Downtown said.
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### Author:  [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2013, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542/8 "2013-02-28T14:39:09Z")
> [@a35362](#):
>
> It’s so distinctive that surely no one can ever use it for anything but Harry Potter merchandise.
Stephen King utilized the Harry Potter font for the chapter titles in “Wolves of the Calla”. He did so for a very specific purpose - and very well, I might add.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2013, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542/9 "2013-02-28T15:46:55Z")
> [@rbroome](#):
>
> IIRC, in the old days font factories would copyright the name
Copyright law does not protect names.
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542/10 "2013-02-28T19:09:48Z")
Wikipedia on [Intellectual property protection of typefaces](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protection_of_typefaces). Confirms most of what has been mentioned modulo correct terminology.
Unfortunately, the part about design patents is not clear.
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### Author:  [@dam0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dam0)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2013, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542/11 "2013-02-28T22:40:26Z")
We work with a lot of companies who have their own fonts, they want us to create multimedia items with their corporate font; however we have to buy them at great cost sometimes.
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### Author:  [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2013, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-owns-the-harry-potter-typeface-can-you-own-a-typeface/651542/12 "2013-03-01T04:58:14Z")
> [@rbroome](#):
>
> hence the popularity of “Times New Roman” vs “Times”.
Actually, Times New Roman was a redrawing of Morison’s own work (there were several). But back in the 1970s and 80s, CompuGraphics typesetters had to remember that Helios=Helvetica, that Paladium=Palatino, that Oracle=Optima. A generation earlier, Monotype users might not have had Futura but the client probably would be satisfied with Tempo.
Old type geeks might remember [this handy cross-reference.](http://www.sanskritweb.net/forgers/compugraphic.pdf)
The PostScript revolution led to a cross-licensing agreement among the big foundries: Adobe, Linotype, and Monotype, so that the same face is sold under the same name by all three. Knockoffs from other sources, made by tracing, get their own names just like in the bad old days.