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Github became the web's largest font piracy site (2017)

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Re: Github became the web's largest font piracy site (2017)

#121

Post by Aeolun »

roywiggins wrote: post #88
Nightshaxx wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's what the GitHub problem is. People are adding the font so people can use the application they made.

Font licenses make the difference very, very clear. > The following are allowed by this agreement; you may: > 1b. Use the WOFF, WOFF2, and EOT web font formats provided by Process to style text on your websites via the CSS @font-face rule for an unlimited number of websites whose content is controlled by you. You agree to use reasonable measures to ensure the fonts are available only for the process of styling text o…

They make the difference clear, but they don’t make a lot of sense.

Re: Github became the web's largest font piracy site (2017)

#122

Post by egypturnash »

Gracana wrote: post #5

What's the difference between putting webfonts on your public website vs putting them on your public github? This seems like a distinction that only lawyers would care about, but I'm not a web developer (and I don't know much about webfonts) so maybe there's something I'm missing.

To use a font on the web, you have to munge it into a special web font format, which only a browser(1) knows how to display text with.

The files this article is talking about are not in that format. They are all TTFs, which you can drop into your system’s font directory and use anywhere on your computer.

Also, these TTFs are linked in a public manner rather than being a file whose link is buried deep in the page source where no human is ever intended to see it.

1: or font conversion tools

Re: Github became the web's largest font piracy site (2017)

#123

Post by christoph »

c3534l wrote: post #10
wnevets wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but I believe you may have a license (paid money) to use the font on your site but you may not have a licence redistribute the font. You paid for the right to air the latest UFC fight at your bar but that doesn't grant you the ability to sale DVDs of it. However a user of yours could just download the font from your web server or record the fight on their phone.

But it's not like a webpage renders an image for you and then you rend an image: you send the user a font so that they can render the page themselves with that font. It's being distributed either way.

For some reason, reading your comment gave me a flashback (no pun intended) to the dark days of sIFR.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Inman_Flash_Replaceme...

Re: Github became the web's largest font piracy site (2017)

#124

Post by Brendinooo »

jzunit wrote: post #112
Brendinooo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude is absolutely bonkers. Someone is making a product and telling you what you can and cannot do with it, and then you decide that none of that applies to you, because...I don't know, you're entitled to use it if you happen to see it? "There will be times when I need to use this font and make something that will go live. That's the time to buy a font." - that depends on the license that the font foundry gr…

Most of the people who are taking your fonts are also making a product. We understand the need to make a living and the difficulty of making a product. I hope you get paid for what you do but you don't get to decide the market size for your product when it is a digital good. The market does. There is a market for paid specialty fonts used on a website. People should pay for that. However, there is not much of a marke…

> You don't get to decide the market size for your product when it is a digital good. The market does.

"It's easy for me to acquire content against the content creator's wishes, therefore I should dictate the market."

> There is not much of a market for paid fonts used in Sketch when developers and designers are testing out different concepts they MIGHT use in production.

Never said there was. There's an easy solution: don't take a font that doesn't belong to you.

This all boils down to "I want something and don't want to pay what the creator thinks it's worth." It's disrespectful, and it's straight-up entitlement. Just don't use the font. Nobody owes you a particular typeface.

> The ground I stand on is reality.

The reality is that it's easy to do the wrong thing here, so you do it, then try to pretzel your way into thinking that it's not morally wrong. Think someone's overcharging? Then don't buy the product.

Re: Github became the web's largest font piracy site (2017)

#125

Post by darkpuma »

open-source-ux wrote: post #79

What a depressing thread. The general consensus (at the time of submitting this comment) is that posters don't care if commercial fonts are hosted on GitHub in violation of their licence. Many professional fonts are the work of a single type designer who may have spent thousands of hours creating the typeface. Modern typefaces can have a dozen or more weights and hundreds of glyphs. It's hard work and time-consuming…

Nobody is entitled to a flawed business model. Not developers of proprietary software, and not designers of proprietary typefaces.

Re: Github became the web's largest font piracy site (2017)

#126

Post by bryanrasmussen »

roywiggins wrote: post #97
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in the end as to whether or not you can put the font in your website and have it public on github (which is not necessarily the same as not encumbered by licensing issues) will need to be determined by the courts when and if someone wants to test the issue.

What if the license explicitly forbids you putting it on GitHub? https://processtypefoundry.com/help/base/webfont-license-agr...

if the license explicitly forbids it you better not do it as I noted above. but if the license does not explicitly forbid then I think you have an argument that putting your website code on github is pretty common practice.

Re: Github became the web's largest font piracy site (2017)

#127

Post by IloveHN84 »

gregmac wrote: post #40

If I use a commercial font as part of my website design, I am in fact publishing that font on my site and anyone can obtain a copy of it -- in fact, they automatically do merely by visiting my site! Does this mean all my visitors are "pirating"? Of course not. Github may make the font more accessible/searchable, but that doesn't change anything about the copyright status of the font. Me publishing something on Github…

The same concept might apply to video content.

Someone hosts a pirated copy of a film somewhere. Does it make everyone who's looking at it a pirate, just because they know the URL?

Re: Github became the web's largest font piracy site (2017)

#128

Post by Gattsu »

open-source-ux wrote: post #79

What a depressing thread. The general consensus (at the time of submitting this comment) is that posters don't care if commercial fonts are hosted on GitHub in violation of their licence. Many professional fonts are the work of a single type designer who may have spent thousands of hours creating the typeface. Modern typefaces can have a dozen or more weights and hundreds of glyphs. It's hard work and time-consuming…

It really is. Most of the developers here probably make twice as much as the average independent type designer, yet they insist on distributing their work without consent.

Re: Github became the web's largest font piracy site (2017)

#129

Post by Gattsu »

drngdds wrote: post #43
Andrex wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you're a font designer or type foundry.

There are enough fonts. It wouldn't be a great loss for humanity if we didn't get as many new fonts because of decreased profit margins in the font design industry.

There is also enough of almost anything by your logic or lack thereof. Guess everyone should just pack up and go home.
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