question about font clones / "dynamo" font Options

[chunkstyle]

hi!

newbie here. can anyone please give me some input regarding the legality of those 'font collection' cd's they sell everywhere? i've got a few, and have used them over the years, but have always wondered how it is that duplicates of well-known existing commercial fonts are all over the place, and there are no apparent copyright ramifications. i vaguely remember having read once something about how the glyphs that comprise the font's characters can't be copyrighted, and that only the font's trade name is protectable. is that true? if so, why? i've always been very curious about this.

for example, you see copies of Aachen Bold, Avant Garde, and Peignot all over the place, under different names, clearly not being sold by the original vendor. What's up with that? do people scan them & redraw them with new vectors (thereby creating a technically 'new' item), so as to skate by? or do they somehow slip into the public domain early because of infringement non-enforcement?

and also (assuming these clones somehow are legal), does anyone know of an equivalent to the font "Dynamo"? That one doesn't show up in any of my cd collections, which is surprising, as it's a pretty well-known font.

thanks very much!

drew j.