January 13, 2006

Curious George: Font Legality How do fair-use agreements and other likewise legal things come into play involving fonts?

I am the editor-in-chief of a school literary magazine. We plan to use a font obtained from the internet, one I found for free at one of those free-font websites. If we publish using the font, and sell the magazine for money, are we violating something?

posted by toohep 18 years ago
  • US law does not protect font designs as intellectual property, according to this opinion. So there's no copyright violation using fonts. However this site has lots of info about font use, like the issue that computer fonts are software, with end user licenses.
  • [ growl hiss spit pop fizz ] Let's copywrote the spaces berween the damn letters! Zen ;et the games begin!
  • This site, which interestingly doesn't seem to sell fonts anymore, argues that there really isn't a case for copyrights on fonts. Evidence is cited, arguments made, but you're sure to get busted if you attempt to sell "backup" CDRs of the Adobe Font Folio on ebay. But what they're talking about is sound. You really can't go back two hundred years, pull a font face, recreate it faithfully on the computer and claim it's yours somehow. That's crazy talk. What if I got a really nice scan of the Mona Lisa, would I then own that? They're oftentimes just taking old designs and rehashing them. And even the new faces are not substantially different from the old ones. Letter shapes are the same, the functions are the same. It's just the frilly bits that differ. Use of downloaded fonts is sketchy. You're placing your faith in the hands of someone who's using the lure of free fonts to get their paying advertisements seen. You get a font, they get a nickel and the advertiser gets a click on a dancing spider. So the credulity is minimal in my eyes. So unless you get a copy of the actual license for the font, a genuine one, you really have no clue what the status is. Also, from a designer's standpoint, those fonts are usually crap. Incomplete, poor kerning, often collide with other fonts in your system causing wacky behavior... On the other hand, in publishing you'll find that probably 50% if not 75% of fonts installed on design computers are not legit. This based on my sample of the last 15 years. No one seems to keep track of them and no one seems to care, except perhaps the IT people in better agency offices.
  • "They're oftentimes just taking old designs and rehashing them. And even the new faces are not substantially different from the old ones. Letter shapes are the same, the functions are the same. It's just the frilly bits that differ." Can you say "The One True Font is Helvetica"? Screw You Ariel!
  • Can you say "My copy of Helvetica (PC, True Type, HP copyright, circa 1997, version 1.3) is poorly hinted and looks like shit at smaller font sizes" and "for the life of me I can't find a decent looking copy" and "as a result every website that uses Helvetica looks like shit to me"? Can you say that? Huh? Can you???? Because it looks so crappy that I have been using Arial for years when I need a sans-serif font. and can anyone suggest a way to make it not look like shit?
  • There's plenty of freeware fonts out there that would allow you to skirt the legal issues completely. I use Bitstream Vera Sans for almost everything.
  • when you downloaded the font, was there a .txt file with any info on the creator, etc? if you do a little digging on the font, you should be able to track down a version that includes a license file, which should spell out what you can and cannot do with the font. what font is it?
  • The font is splendid 66. A google search of it comes up with a website that has it for download, free. all that is said in the contained text file about it is: You may distribute, sell, resell, change or modify the font - and you are allowed to upload the font onto any site or CD if this disclaimer is included in the download (text.txt). Any other means prohibited. I'm going to contact the author, I suppose.
  • Although, now that I look at it, is that covered under "you may...sell...the font"?
  • FontDiner has a section of free fonts for non-commercial use. A limited set, but kinda nifty.
  • I honestly never thought of a font being copyrighted. I though the only way you could get into trouble was if the font looked too much like some company's trademark?
  • Is this considered non-commercial use, however?
  • How many banana peels will I get chucked at me if I call those fonts from FontDiner "Font-astic?"
  • :|
  • Why would you do that, TUM? We're not talking about baptism.
  • If I were to make jokes about that kind of font, I would make an apse of myself with such nave-ish behavior. Aisle play that kind of humor close to the vestry.
  • medic!
  • That chapel never learn.
  • That chapel never learn. You do know that underarm bowling came before overarm, don't you?
  • He was just trying to hide the fact that he'd forgotten his deodorant. Pity it all backfired so badly.