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Why Rent or Buy, When You Can Rasterize.

typophile.com

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Re: Why Rent or Buy, When You Can Rasterize.

#11

Post by potatolicious »

oldgregg wrote: post #6
poronski wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could downvote you for a sheer ignorance. > who needs a service ? Foundries do. You know, the people who actually make your "local fonts". Also those who recognize what a complex task the type design is and want to compensate them for their work.

Yeah, okay, well if you still cling to the antiquated concept of IP then I won't downvote you for sheer ignorance.

Listen, we don't much tolerate hostile assholes around here - so if you're just going to hurl insults at other members of this community from the comfort of your chair, then please do us all a favour and GTFO.

To address your rather poorly communicated point though: the concept of IP isn't going to disappear, especially not overnight. To pretend that we don't need to find solutions around the IP minefield is unwise at best.

Re: Why Rent or Buy, When You Can Rasterize.

#12

Post by ptomato »

oldgregg wrote: post #4

Great concept, but who needs a service? This should just be an open source plugin. I dump all of my local fonts into a folder and then just "Comic Sans", :height => "400" %> -- add a cache and this would be splendid. PS. By "local fonts" I mean http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4475069/Font_Collection_(65_...

Really? Links to illegal copies? Classy.

Re: Why Rent or Buy, When You Can Rasterize.

#13

Post by jhancock »

poronski wrote: post #5
oldgregg wrote: post #4

Great concept, but who needs a service? This should just be an open source plugin. I dump all of my local fonts into a folder and then just "Comic Sans", :height => "400" %> -- add a cache and this would be splendid. PS. By "local fonts" I mean http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4475069/Font_Collection_(65_...

I wish I could downvote you for a sheer ignorance. > who needs a service ? Foundries do. You know, the people who actually make your "local fonts". Also those who recognize what a complex task the type design is and want to compensate them for their work.

Its fine to compensate people for the tough work they do on fonts. It still doesn't mean you have to run it as a service. You can still license. Usually, most customers that will pay, do, without regard to what they can do illegally. Those that won't pay, probably won't pay for the service either.

Re: Why Rent or Buy, When You Can Rasterize.

#14

Post by jrockway »

poronski wrote: post #3
huhtenberg wrote: post #2

Startup idea, anyone ?

The idea is OK, but one needs to have connections in typographic community to execute it. Going foundry by foundry and convincing them to take their heads out of DRM hole and consider simpler, unsexy options such as this one. This can translate into a lot of effort.

If you are allowed to buy a font to make images for your website, why wouldn't you be allowed to sell those images to others? Professional web designers do it all the time.

(Video rentals are similar. First sale, and all that.)

Re: Why Rent or Buy, When You Can Rasterize.

#15

Post by jrockway »

ptomato wrote: post #12
oldgregg wrote: post #4

Great concept, but who needs a service? This should just be an open source plugin. I dump all of my local fonts into a folder and then just "Comic Sans", :height => "400" %> -- add a cache and this would be splendid. PS. By "local fonts" I mean http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4475069/Font_Collection_(65_...

Really? Links to illegal copies? Classy.

It's a link to the torrent of the illegal copy. The link does not lead to an illegal copy.

Also, is copying really illegal? What law and jurisdiction are you referring to?

Re: Why Rent or Buy, When You Can Rasterize.

#16

Post by jrockway »

There seem to be a lot of complaints about the fact that images of text break accessibility. That is completely untrue, as long as the designer also includes alt text. I use a text-based web browser from time to time, and I've found that most designers do a good job of this.

This also doesn't break resizing any more than any other design element on the page would. Try going to any blog and resizing; the layout breaks. That's just how it goes if you want a page that looks nice. (Even HN doesn't resize nicely, and it doesn't use any images at all.)

So basically, this is a non-issue for 98% of the users. For the 1% of the users that use w3m without images enabled, they can still read all of the text. The 1% of users that are blind, can still have all the text read to them by the screen reader.

Sometimes I think people make these arguments because other people have made the same arguments for years. It's like a disease....

Re: Why Rent or Buy, When You Can Rasterize.

#17

Post by ptomato »

jrockway wrote: post #15
ptomato wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Links to illegal copies? Classy.

It's a link to the torrent of the illegal copy. The link does not lead to an illegal copy. Also, is copying really illegal? What law and jurisdiction are you referring to?

"It's a link to the torrent of the illegal copy."

Technologically speaking, that's not really any different then saying "That's a link to a page that solely consists of a link to the illegal copy." Whether the protocol is HTTP or BitTorrent isn't really relevant. "Oh we don't host illegal stuff we only provide torrents, all the stuff is distributed elsewhere" may be (though quite possibly isn't) a valid legal defense for the torrent site hosting it, but doesn't really have any place when discussing the appropriateness of linking to it from here.

And obtaining an unlicensed copy of the fonts from those foundries will be illegal (definition: something that you can be successfully sued for by said foundries in court) in essentially any First-world country. Certainly in the U.S., where OP, you, I, and probably the majority of news.yc are located.

Re: Why Rent or Buy, When You Can Rasterize.

#18

Post by sailormoon »

potatolicious wrote: post #11
oldgregg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, okay, well if you still cling to the antiquated concept of IP then I won't downvote you for sheer ignorance.

Listen, we don't much tolerate hostile assholes around here - so if you're just going to hurl insults at other members of this community from the comfort of your chair, then please do us all a favour and GTFO. To address your rather poorly communicated point though: the concept of IP isn't going to disappear, especially not overnight. To pretend that we don't need to find solutions around the IP minefield is unwise a…

I didn't think he acted like a hostile asshole. That comment about sheer ignorance had already been made to him, he was just handing it back.

Re: Why Rent or Buy, When You Can Rasterize.

#19

Post by sailormoon »

ptomato wrote: post #17
jrockway wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a link to the torrent of the illegal copy. The link does not lead to an illegal copy. Also, is copying really illegal? What law and jurisdiction are you referring to?

"It's a link to the torrent of the illegal copy." Technologically speaking, that's not really any different then saying "That's a link to a page that solely consists of a link to the illegal copy." Whether the protocol is HTTP or BitTorrent isn't really relevant. "Oh we don't host illegal stuff we only provide torrents, all the stuff is distributed elsewhere" may be (though quite possibly isn't) a valid legal defense…

Illegal != immoral. And personally I cannot understand why foundries don't just give free downloads of their fonts anyway. It's utterly trivial to find "illegal" copies if you wish. The people who pay do so to license them for commercial use; they're not paying for the actual files and would pay regardless.

I really hate people talking about "illegal stuff". I don't see why it's natural or obvious that there is even such a thing as illegal information, or an illegal action you can take with information. The idea that you can incriminate yourself merely by copying a file, no matter what that file is, is abhorrent to me.

Re: Why Rent or Buy, When You Can Rasterize.

#20

Post by jhg »

domnit wrote: post #9

> If you think for a moment how exactly non-standard fonts are used in the web design, it will immediately make perfect sense. They are used sparingly for headers, menus and such and they are always rasterized. Non-standard fonts are used sparingly precisely because they have to be rasterized.

You took it out of the context.

He is talking about the state of affairs and how that creates an immediate opportunity for type designers willing to sell rasterized versions of their fonts, not suggesting an alternative to the @font-face support.

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