201–210 of 421 posts
Sort of off-topic, but interesting engine, which I never heard about (wasn't ever mentioned on HN either: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Iceshrimp):
>Iceshrimp is a decentralized and federated social networking service, implementing the ActivityPub standard.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't copyright a font.
You can copyright just about anything as long as you have the _money_ T-Mobile trademarked a very specific pink, "Magenta" There’s even a company that holds trademarks on a set of colors, Pantone. Courts have yet to reverse or revoke these silly trademarks.
Is this the wrong time to rant about font licensing though? I’ve always bought and paid for fonts, but as I’ve gradually transitioned to mobile app development, I one day realized that all the fonts I bought for print are now worthless to me. These crazy outdated licenses that let you print as many magazines or books you want forever, for a one-time price. But if your hobby is making apps, then suddenly the same font…
There is maybe nothing in the entire world that I am less sympathetic towards than the cause of font piracy / font liberation. You have perfectly good --- in fact, historically excellent --- fonts loaded by default for free on any computer you buy today. Arguing for the oppression of font licenses is, to me, like arguing about how much it costs to buy something at Hermès. Just don't shop at Hermès.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The OP didn't say they didn't want to pay, they're saying there's been a shift toward per-impression pricing which is often unsustainable for even the most lucrative apps.
So, using the OP's own comparison, I should be able to pay a one off "saffron purchase", and then be able to use as much saffron as I want from the supermarket for every meal I ever make in the future? ;-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is maybe nothing in the entire world that I am less sympathetic towards than the cause of font piracy / font liberation. You have perfectly good --- in fact, historically excellent --- fonts loaded by default for free on any computer you buy today. Arguing for the oppression of font licenses is, to me, like arguing about how much it costs to buy something at Hermès. Just don't shop at Hermès.
I agree the average person is likely fine with the fonts on their computer, but this is profoundly misunderstanding the importance of design. Typefaces are incredibly important, and have been for centuries. I'd argue that complaining about font prices is less like a Hermes bag, and more like complaining about high-end ingredients when a supermarket has cheap stuff. Yes, you can get away with cheaper materials when co…
When I was younger and a bit more haughty about design, I would have agreed, but now I feel like I need more to substantiate the claim, even thought I feel like I agree.
> I'd argue that complaining about font prices is less like a Hermes bag, and more like complaining about high-end ingredients when a supermarket has cheap stuff. Yes, you can get away with cheaper materials when cooking, but the final product will deeply suffer.
This also needs a bit more. In what cases would some dish suffer "deeply" simply from having used commodity ingredients (a quality that's a core tenant in many famous designers' approaches)? You could more easily argue that something isn't the same as another, or perhaps less appealing visually, or perhaps less nutritionally dense, but it all seems a bit specious to me. Some cases would be significant, such as the choice of a garden tomato over a store tomato, but that's hardly a high-end concern, and why would high-end concerns be all that important anyway?
My opinion is that design is as important as the problems it solves or the outcome it produces, and the existence and selection of appropriate typefaces can be a core component in that, it would not be easy to make a strong value oriented argument for the discrete choice of one expensive typeface over another commodity typeface unless one evidently solves a problem better, or its value is already established because of the association with an existing identity that already uses it.
That's not to say they aren't worth paying for, or that licensing them isn't an issue, it's just kind of a debatable question how much one over another is worth or how important it is, much like art in general or other creative works.
What happens if you present an image of a page in some font to an LLM, and ask it to make you a font file for that font? An LLM could probably not only do that, but create matching characters for ones not already present. Oh, and tell it to fix the kerning.
- Font letterforms are not copyrightable. (Eltra Corp. v. Ringer, 579 F.2d 294 (4th Cir. 1978) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eltra_Corp._v._Ringer>)
- Font programmes are. (Generally 1980 Computer Software Copyright Act.)
- Cleanroom reimplementation of software is not copyright infringement. An AI without access to original source code would likely pass this test.
- As a further twist, it appears likely that courts will hold that AI creations are themselves not copyrightable (original works of authorship), such that the product of any such project would itself be public domain. (See: https://www.reuters.com/legal/ai-generated-art-cannot-receiv...>.)
The whole scenario appears to open the door to liberation of all fonts for which public letterforms are available. This would be an "AI hole" (analogous to the ... analogue hole) for escaping copyright. Whether this liberation would occur before foundries passed new protective legislation will be an interesting question.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I think we're just looking at it from different perspectives. Yes, most people are fine choosing from the fonts available on their computer when writing a document. But that's not what me nor OP are talking about. We're talking about shipping software (like a mobile app), or publishing a blog post. In that case, the best you can specify is either a very common font (Helvetica, etc), or a high-level classification…
> There are many free fonts out there, yes, but there's a reason they're free. Go on and tell me what that reason is then. Are you also going to tell me free open-source software, like Linux is low-quality because its free? > The quality for a majority of them is significantly lower Again, a completely baseless, unprovable assertion. > You don't have to agree, but I'm not being absurd or lacking sincerity. What do yo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The important subtext of this thread is that, when we're talking about functional typesetting, the solutions space is pretty constrained. There aren't that many things you can do with a text face (vs. a display face). And you already have available to you extremely high-quality, well-hinted text faces at a full range of weights.
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!)…
The moral background for copyright is in free fall these days. It is quickly turning into one of these things that there are laws for, and everyone thinks it is rediculous, it is never enforced and DE facto not a law. And what a shame that is.
Copyright, and patents, are not based on moral principles. It's a temporary government license meant to encourage innovation and hustle. Whether it works or not, I don't know. But the only question of morality is if it's immoral to break an arbitrary law, or not.
US patent and copyright derive from A1S8C8 of the US constitution, "to promote science and useful arts".
Much EU law derives from a French tradition based on droight d'auteur, or moral rights.
International copyright code (Berne Convention) rips and mashes from both traditions.