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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)

#41

Post by dbg31415 »

Funny story, I was working with an enterprise-sized company, a major telcom, and we found out that we had used the "wrong" version of the font everywhere. The original font was like "My Font" and the font we had used was the "Pro My Font" that had a bunch of extra symbols and such in it and was higher-priced. But we used it everywhere, for years. And it would have been a huge hassle to change it all. So we emailed the designer and were like, "Look, we didn't intend to screw you, but we also didn't really budget the $450k in estimated licenses we'd need here... how about we pay you like $30k extra and call it good?"

Anyway, long story short, the small-time designer guy was thrilled to get $30k, and turns out he wasn't at all even monitoring for pirated versions of his font anywhere... he didn't have any idea who had bought his font, so to him it was just some random big company offering to give him free money. The places that sell fonts should do a better job of passing on payment (obviously) to designers, but also a list of who bought their fonts so they can take some pride in knowing where their designs are being used.

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

#42

Post by jrockway »

Yeah I'm a big fan of people's dotfile directories for trying out fonts. I remember some HN discussion about a proprietary font that was pretty good for programming. I was on the fence on whether or not I wanted it, just by looking at screenshots. So I used Github search to find someone that dumped it in their home directory, downloaded it, and tried it out. I hated it! So I saved money thanks to this piracy. (I use Iosevka now. Wow it's good.)

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

#43

Post by drngdds »

Andrex wrote: post #35
jzunit wrote: post #6

Been doing searches for "site:github.com .ttf" for years. This is a feature not a bug.

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.

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

#44

Post by amyjess »

Nextgrid wrote: post #7
jchw wrote: post #4

Interestingly, typefaces are not copyrightable in the US, though fonts, being computer code, can be. Not sure how this influences the situation, though.

Wouldn’t it then be legal to make your own font (so you own the copyright on the computer code) representing a commercial typeface?

This happens _all the time_. Bitstream, one of the very first digital foundries, got their start by digitizing famous print typefaces without permission (not that they needed it).

Funny thing is, legendary type designer Hermann Zapf actually worked with URW to create knockoffs of fonts he'd originally designed for Linotype years before. Some of them even got open-sourced, which is why there's a free version of Palatino in the Ghostscript fonts (URW Palladio L).

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

#46

Post by roywiggins »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #16
c3534l wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Correct. Article OP is making the argument for a font to be treated as a secret when it is not a secret. Intent and context is important; users aren't putting them up on torrent sites in this case, but simply storing them alongside the rest of their assets in source control. EDIT: TLDR Downloading a publicly available font you don't have a license to use violates copyright.

Accidentally exposing a folder of copyrighted font files over FTP would probably technically violate the license, even if it was by accident. You're serving the files outside of the licensed use (serving and rendering a webpage).

Same as if you accidentally exposed to the internet your home server of legally-created DVD backups. You'd still be violating the license under which you bought the DVDs.

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

#47

Post by rstupek »

skilled wrote: post #14

I'm guilty of having searched GitHub's repositories for fonts I like. Using them for personal projects and wouldn't mind paying for a license if I end up loving it. Though, it begs the question: who and how will find out that you simply borrowed the font?

You'd be surprised. Companies exist to scan the web looking for copyrighted works on behalf of companies and send out demand letters for payment.

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

#48

Post by favorited »

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 are enough fonts. It wouldn't be a great loss for humanity if you weren't able to use one you didn't pay for.

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

#50

Post by toomuchtodo »

roywiggins wrote: post #46
toomuchtodo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Article OP is making the argument for a font to be treated as a secret when it is not a secret. Intent and context is important; users aren't putting them up on torrent sites in this case, but simply storing them alongside the rest of their assets in source control. EDIT: TLDR Downloading a publicly available font you don't have a license to use violates copyright.

Accidentally exposing a folder of copyrighted font files over FTP would probably technically violate the license, even if it was by accident. You're serving the files outside of the licensed use (serving and rendering a webpage). Same as if you accidentally exposed to the internet your home server of legally-created DVD backups. You'd still be violating the license under which you bought the DVDs.

Show me an attorney willing to pursue accidental violators for damages, especially when the asset in question is intended to be publicly served in the course of its use.

I would genuinely be interested in case law's stance on this. Also interested in what happens to the value of non-public domain fonts if you require the digital asset to be handled as a secret (and all of the hassle that goes along with that).

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