211–220 of 421 posts
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.
>And what a shame that is. I was with you until this. Copyright is a legal fiction, if it's no longer working the world will adapt. No need for shame to be involved.
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Is your point weakened by the fact that there is not one freely available font to use commercially, but literally thousands?
I guess it comes down to how you view the concept of "the medium is the message". Should the tone be set by the creator of the software / writer of the blog post / etc, or should the end user choose one typeface for everything (or have fine-grained control over everything they read and view?)
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Avatar was pretty immersive! And they just did Select-All and chose Papyrus!
They updated it for the sequel, and one example doesn't nullify thousands of years of design. But to go down that path from a logical standpoint... Papyrus isn't on my computer (OSX) for whatever reason, and it doesn't come on Linux. Papyrus isn't a free, public font... it's licensed by its owner (ITC), so the only reason you can use it on your computer is because someone is paying a license for you to see it.
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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? ;-)
No, because Saffron is a physical commodity with inherent production costs, supply chain logistics, and a finite supply. A better analogy would be that if you bought a saffron crocus, you shouldn't have to pay a monthly fee to harvest it.
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 These crazy outdated licenses that let you print as many magazines or books you want forever, for a one-time price.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…
The way this works is the design team picks some font, uses it on all of the design proposals, gets it approved by management, and then only later does a developer realize it’s a paid font they’ve been asked to put in the app. The teams want to avoid going back for design change approvals so eventually they just give up and pay the money.
It’s not developers picky boutique expensive fonts, in my experience. It’s the designers who don’t think about the consequences because by they point it’s off their plate.
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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.
Hermes doesn't forbid you from wearing your watch or charge 10x more for you to wear it while playing a mobile game. I think a lot of the anger is more about the complexity and price discrimination than the absolute price.
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.
It's worth noting that the moral background (at least in terms of political philosophy in the US) was always rooted in practicalities. The Constitution even includes the qualifier "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." The moment a protection works against those goals, it's on shaky ground. And that ground is always in flux; there's a reason Thomas Jefferson noted regarding patents that "other nations hav…
The right to claim renumeration for, and restrict use of, one's work should not IMO extend for multiple generations. I'm not sure it should even extend for one.
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No, I'm saying a Michelin chef can complain about a 50x increase in the cost of truffles without negating the fact that a lot of people happily survive on ramen.
No, those things aren't comparable. Truffles have a functional role in a dish. A typeface does not have a meaningful functional role in a document, compared to the high-quality freely-available alternatives. This is like complaining about some kind of specially-carved or dyed truffle.
100% incorrect. There are fonts that are made specifically to increase legibility for a dyslexic audience. If that's not a functional role than I don't know what is.
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No, those things aren't comparable. Truffles have a functional role in a dish. A typeface does not have a meaningful functional role in a document, compared to the high-quality freely-available alternatives. This is like complaining about some kind of specially-carved or dyed truffle.
> A typeface does not have a meaningful functional role in a document 100% incorrect. There are fonts that are made specifically to increase legibility for a dyslexic audience. If that's not a functional role than I don't know what is.
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…