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You wouldn't steal a font

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Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#181

Post by jonhohle »

derefr wrote: post #155
lolinder wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even under this analogy you're complaining about the price of luxury goods and saying that it's no wonder people shoplift to steal the truffles because they're so darn expensive. If you can't afford the license for the font, your app is small-time enough that you can make do with one of the many, many high-quality fonts that are available for free, there's no need to pirate it. If your app is big enough that the diff…

Try this analogy out: it's no wonder that people are interested in / have demand for generic reproductions of licensed cultivars of a plant (e.g. buying generic "grape tomatoes" rather than specific, expensive "cherry tomatoes.") It's also no wonder that people will happily buy these generics even when they're not white-box reverse-engineered phenotype reproductions via independent breeding, but carefully bred-true g…

I don’t particularly like the analogy, but love cherry tomatoes. Grape tomatoes are such a blight on this world. Kind of like Arial is to Helvetica.

I would never steal a cherry tomato, but will reject a grape tomato at any chance I get.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#182

Post by socalgal2 »

TIL: font designs are not copyrightable in the USA. Font files are but the design itself is not. It seems you are free to copy the design, but not the file. Not sure how that plays out in practice. Is it common to copy a font design or is it just more common to be inspired by a font design but make a new font that's in the same general design space? Like say Arial seems inspired by Helvetica but is not the same.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#183

Post by jonhohle »

vFunct wrote: post #149
jeremyjh wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You think games would feel as immersive if everything was Calibri? What computer are you buying that only has one font? There are dozens of fonts, covering all kinds of styles, on every desktop sold.

Very few system fonts are any good. Would you use Arial instead of Helvetica Neue? I certainly wouldn't. Put two posters side-by-side and you'd notice the Helvetica one as looking more professional, even without any design background. Additionally, very few system fonts include all the weights. Fonts aren't just come in a single weight. The font you use for a giant page-filling title is generally skinnier than the fo…

Apple has been shipping systems with various weights of Helvetica Neue forever. https://developer.apple.com/fonts/system-fonts/

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#184

Post by ars »

snypher wrote: post #166
ars wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> takes a lot of work The "sweat of the brow" argument is not valid in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow

>Under the Feist ruling in the US, mere collections of facts are considered unoriginal and thus not protected by copyright, no matter how much work went into collating them. This person isn't just collecting existing letter shapes; inventing a new letter shapes would be protected by copyright?

You aren't inventing a new letter shapes - letters already exist. You are modifying how they look, and that's not considered creative enough.

There are lots of things that can't be copyrighted.

For example you can't copyright an anatomy drawing: https://www.skeletaldrawing.com/licensing (i.e. the layout of the bones, etc) but you can copyright your specific drawing - but someone else could draw in the same style and not violate your copyright.

Same here: You can't copyright the shape of the letters, but you can copyright you specific ttf program (expression), but someone else can make the same letter shapes if they want.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#187

Post by efeamzaov »

derefr wrote: post #155
lolinder wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even under this analogy you're complaining about the price of luxury goods and saying that it's no wonder people shoplift to steal the truffles because they're so darn expensive. If you can't afford the license for the font, your app is small-time enough that you can make do with one of the many, many high-quality fonts that are available for free, there's no need to pirate it. If your app is big enough that the diff…

Try this analogy out: it's no wonder that people are interested in / have demand for generic reproductions of licensed cultivars of a plant (e.g. buying generic "grape tomatoes" rather than specific, expensive "cherry tomatoes.") It's also no wonder that people will happily buy these generics even when they're not white-box reverse-engineered phenotype reproductions via independent breeding, but carefully bred-true g…

[dead]

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#188

Post by BeFlatXIII »

grishka wrote: post #105
refulgentis wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, AFAIK, the general assumption is every font is absurdly easy to steal, and that you'll do so before purchasing it. So it's de facto "free unlimited trial, free for personal use, pay for business if you have a soul and shame"

Depends on the country. I researched it for Russia recently and apparently the law is much stricter about fonts here than in the US. Both the character shapes and the "code" are copyrightable so you ain't getting away with converting it into a different format either. Companies did get sued over this and did have to pay millions of rubles in fines and licensing fees for their past usage. Not sure about individuals bu…

> I wouldn't try my luck with any non-free fonts made by Russian designers.

Depends if your home country cares about Russian civil court or not.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#189

Post by bravura »

tptacek wrote: post #161
gkoberger wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respect you a ton (genuinely, I think you're the most interesting writer in the tech space), but you have a profound misunderstanding of the importance of typography if you think the only reason you'd need a paid typeface is the same reason you'd need a Hermes bag. I know you're a curious person, so hopefully you take this as an opportunity to open your horizons on the importance of it.

I'm a typeface nerd. Bringhurst is one of 3 books on the end-table next to me right now. I spend a stupid amount of money for Hoefler fonts for my dumb blog. This to me is like the Menswear Guy on Twitter, who will explain in very great detail to you why the Hermès product is significantly better than the generic alternative. He's right, but he also understands that you buy the Hermès product to make a statement. Spe…

I usually like your takes, but where I disagree today is when you say: "Truffles have a functional role in a dish." but fonts don't.

Either both do have functional roles or both are luxuries like Hermès.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#190

Post by Mistletoe »

gkoberger wrote: post #116
fmbb wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are roughly zero apps out there that would ”deeply suffer” from having to use freely available and/or system supported fonts.

That's not true at all. You think games would feel as immersive if everything was Calibri? Magazine-style articles would feel as tactile if they all used the same system fonts? Etc. You may not care about fonts, but to say they don't matter is a misunderstanding. For example, I could glibly say we only need one programming language (the user doesn't care what syntax you used before it was compiled down to 1s and 0s!)…

If Avatar can use Papyrus, I think your apps are fine with common fonts.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=jVhlJNJopOQ

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