Hadopi, the newly created French Internet authority established to fight file-sharing, finds itself in hot water for having wrongfully used another’s typographic font.

After the French state filed a trademark application, observers noticed an uncanny similarity between the Hadopi logo and Bienvenue, a font specially created by Jean-François Porchez for France Telecom, which subsequently used the Bienvenue font in a logo for its Wanadoo brand.

After this abuse was exposed, Hadopi’s design people acquired rights to commercially available fonts; they will reportedly have to file a new trademark application.

Hopefully this episode will lead to greater appreciation for fonts –such as those created by Porchez’s Typofonderie– and for the need to license them.

Apart from the typographic font, I’m left with a lingering sense of similarity between Hadopi’s logo and Wanadoo’s. And I’m unnerved by the red “eye” at the logo’s center, reminiscent of the malevolent HAL from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

French trademark application, filed 16 November 2009