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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.

#21

Post by sailormoon »

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 agree. And I'd further add that it's quite likely that the time wasted and inefficiencies caused by having to deal with the trifling issue of font IP handsomely exceeds the combined revenue of all font foundries on earth.

The top 500 or so fonts should just be moved into the public domain en masse so we can forget about this ridiculous issue once and for all. Sucks if you're a foundry but you don't get to collect windfall profits for the rest of your life just because you made a slightly more attractive capital A a few months before someone else would have done the same, and the cost of administrating that "property" far outweighs any benefit such a property regime might theoretically deliver.

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

#22

Post by ptomato »

sailormoon wrote: post #19
ptomato wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

"I cannot understand why foundries don't just give free downloads of their fonts anyway."

And that makes it okay for you to use them? If you object philosophically to their position then don't use the product they produce; justifying your desire to use their product without paying them certainly doesn't indicate high moral standards on your part.

"The idea that you can incriminate yourself merely by copying a file, no matter what that file is, is abhorrent to me."

Because information has value and without a way of getting recompensed for that value nobody will take the time to create the information.

What do you do, and why should you get paid for it?

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

#23

Post by domnit »

jhg wrote: post #20
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.

> here is an idea that can be easily implemented right now and that will cover the 100% of the web design community needs.

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

#24

Post by pbhjpbhj »

niczar wrote: post #8

Stupid idea. That's what's already done today and it's not good enough: doesn't reflow, doesn't zoom properly, does not work for dynamic texts (eh buddy, ever heard of FUCKING BLOGS?), isn't that great for accessibility, SUCKS a lot for the mobile web, and so on and so forth. Why, oh why do I have to state the fucking obvious here?

Skip the profanity and you have a cogent argument in there somewhere.

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

#25

Post by pbhjpbhj »

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…

This is effectively what canonical do with video codecs - "if you have the right licenses or you have rights in your legal jurisdiction to use these codecs then here's a pointer to find them". This is no more illegal than saying to someone how to produce alcoholic drinks from grapes, say, in some jurisdictions that will be illegal (under Sharia law) in others not.
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