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You wouldn't steal a font

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Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#271

Post by tptacek »

threatofrain wrote: post #270
tptacek wrote: post #92

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'd say the same about shows and movies, which is where the supermajority of this conversation is typically focused, especially given how much free content is over YouTube.

I do believe that about shows and movies and have argued that point here in the past, but it's especially true of typefaces.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#272

Post by hiccuphippo »

lynndotpy wrote: post #17
tiffanyh wrote: post #11

Can someone explain to me how you determine if a font is ripped/stolen? I was under the impression that fonts are just a collection of line arc/points. So is this a probabilistic comparison in that, if all of the line arc/points match another font - the chances are high it was ripped?

In this case, per the link: > went sleuthing and quickly found a PDF from the campaign site with the font embedded So, the PDF had the font Xband Rough embedded inside of it.

But was Xband created by copying the math from FF Confidential?

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#273

Post by s4i »

selkin wrote: post #30
crazygringo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no evidence XBAND Rough was extracted from a digital source bit-for-bit, unless someone can point to any? It seems like it was just a hobbyist project to recreate the look of the font from the anti-piracy ads? Which is 100% legal. Edit: OK, so the original font appears to be "FF Confidential"? Why didn't the post even mention that? So maybe it is a digital clone, which would be illegal. But then strange that…

XBAND Rough could not have been inspired by those ads, as the OP shows the ads are using XBAND, and not FF Confidential, the original tyepface it cloned.

We don’t know what the ads (meaning, the videos) used. We only know what was on their website.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#274

Post by behringer »

dcow wrote: post #232
gkoberger wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some confusion in who is responding to whom, then. I never said anything about piracy, but the person responding to me may have confused me with the top-level comment. All I have done is defend the importance of typography, and never mentioned piracy or stealing.

Typography is important. So important that we have really good looking fonts available for free. And a custom font isn’t going to be the deciding factor in whether your next AI powered social graph app sinks or floats. Guaranteed.

Then why are the fonts so expensive?

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#275

Post by cut3 »

phony-account wrote: post #24

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…

As a mostly now digital designer I get it... but also realize that digital has the capacity to scale instantly where print doesnt. Want to get 40 million editions out digitally? Gimme a sec. Physically? Gonna need to get some investment capital and a few years ramp up.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#276

Post by hnfong »

gkoberger wrote: post #109
tptacek wrote: post #92

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…

If you often use custom fonts that aren't preinstalled on typical systems, I can't help but wonder whether you also painstakingly choose fonts for non-latin character/non-latin based languages?

I'll admit opening a can of worms on purpose, but if you're going for the "high-end", ignoring the i18n implications seems like a crime on its own, and yet most people don't really have the design expertise to evaluate whether a font looks good in another totally foreign language...

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#277

Post by raincole »

colechristensen wrote: post #15
datadrivenangel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely are copyrighted and big money.

You can, entirely legally, make a copy of any font and distribute it freely. You can't copy the font files themselves, but you can make visually indistinguishable new fonts with the same shapes because the shapes are not protected by copyright. Additionally though, some fonts have design patents, which does protect the shape. Unlike copyright which has absolutely crazy expiration (like 150 years occasionally?) these…

So if I already have the file (legally acquired or not), I'm free to use it for print? Cause obviously distributing T-shirts isn't distributing font files?

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#278

Post by setopt »

mlx0x wrote: post #253
gkoberger wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Where’s the car in this analogy?

How would you get away with the stolen truffles?

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#279

Post by hackingonempty »

phkahler wrote: post #29
wildzzz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even harder to get away with pirating fonts now with web fonts. Either the service can detect you pulling a font for a domain that isn't paying for it or webcrawlers will find unpaid fonts.

>> Either the service can detect you pulling a font for a domain that isn't paying for it... Is that really a thing? Markup in a web page tells how to display the text. Saying "use this font over here on this other server" seems fair game on some level. Might not be on another level, but it's technically the end user downloading a file that's publicly available on some server.

In the USA at least, contributory and vicarious infringement are a thing. Grokster knowingly directed their users to infringing material so they picked up secondary liability.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#280

Post by tossandthrow »

Suppafly wrote: post #64
tossandthrow wrote: post #16

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.

Copyright in the sense of corporate greed is indeed an issue.

Whenever talk about that being a shame, I am thinking about the individual author who lost control over their work and still can not feed themselves.

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