[mikedc]

The implication that this is a practice being used to skirt copyright is wrong. In almost all cases the font foundry is commissioned by a company to produce a distinct (or not so distinct as the case may be) variant of a typeface/family, licensed to them for their use - as an alternative to having the foundry create an entirely new typeface from scratch.

[OzzyB]

The point I'm making is that you can simply modify an already existing font "just enough" for it to be considered a new work.

This is essentially what happened with Arial w/ Helvetica; and companies have been doing this ever since to create new licenses that they can control.

We are drowning in Grotesk/Sans-Serif/Helvetica type fonts! Do we really need another "Big Tech Sans"? Or rather, why can't Twitter just use X? xD