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You wouldn't steal a font

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Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#81

Post by kccqzy »

Suppafly wrote: post #48
cyberpunk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember trying to explain to some colleagues why I paid about 100 bucks for the font I use and why I wouldn’t share it with them and they just couldn’t get it. (It’s Berkeley mono). I don’t even know how many glyphs it is (it’s thousands) but for something I’m looking at for 6-8 hours a day, every single day and is the absolute peak of perfection (at least to me), 100 bucks seems like a fucking bargain to me. shru…

>shrug I guess these folks never sold something they made completely by themselves maybe. Not saying font designers shouldn't get paid, but they mostly aren't making things "completely by themselves", they are mostly making derivative works from things that exist, without any consideration for the original authors.

What do you suppose they should do to the original authors? Perhaps the original author is Claude Garamond who died in the sixteenth century? Or the unknown workers who carved the inscription at Trajan's column in the second century AD?

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#82

Post by alabastervlog »

wildzzz wrote: post #18
pelagic_sky wrote: post #14

Very early in my design education (late 90's) I was taught that fonts are fonts and the more you have, the better you tool set would be. As a graphic designer I definitely made things with fonts I had downloaded. It wasn't till I got my first serious design job at an agency where I quickly learned about purchasing and licensing fonts. Even if I could "find" a missing font, I wasn't allowed to use it. We needed to get…

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.

"Pulling a font for a domain"—wtf, isn't the client making the request? Why detect anything, just require a referrer on your allow-list, and deny if it's not there.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#83

Post by codedokode »

Suppafly wrote: post #40
jll29 wrote: post #19

What saddens me is that a lot of people are so ignorant that they don't even realize a font is something that takes creativity, tradecraft and a lot of work/time/effort to design.

>What saddens me is that a lot of people are so ignorant that they don't even realize a font is something that takes creativity, tradecraft and a lot of work/time/effort to design. Except most of the creative part was done 100 years ago and companies are now trying to protect the fact that they digitized something that has existed for a century or longer.

Not every font is digitized from old samples.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#84

Post by amgutier »

codedokode wrote: post #78
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> was itself arguably a copyright-infringing knock-off. In US law, there is no such thing. The shape of a glyph (or many) isn't even slightly copyrightable. This is settled law. Fonts (on computers) have a special status that makes them semi-copyrightable in that some jackass judge from the 1980s called them "computer programs" and so they have the same protection as software... but this won't protect against knockof…

Is this fair? It actually takes a lot of work (I assume) to design letter's shapes. Of course, not counting those who just trace 16-th century font without paying a compensation.

> Of course, not counting those who just trace 16-th century font without paying a compensation

I can't tell which way you mean this, but that sounds similar to the situation with most public domain musical compositions - the manuscripts may be completely open but a specific typesetting can still under copyright. And like that case, "just" tracing a font / typesetting a composition is still a fair amount of work.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#85

Post by ars »

codedokode wrote: post #78
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> was itself arguably a copyright-infringing knock-off. In US law, there is no such thing. The shape of a glyph (or many) isn't even slightly copyrightable. This is settled law. Fonts (on computers) have a special status that makes them semi-copyrightable in that some jackass judge from the 1980s called them "computer programs" and so they have the same protection as software... but this won't protect against knockof…

Is this fair? It actually takes a lot of work (I assume) to design letter's shapes. Of course, not counting those who just trace 16-th century font without paying a compensation.

> 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

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#86

Post by worik »

nickff wrote: post #52
giordanol wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

font licensing feels like it never caught up with how software actually gets made now. charging more for app use than for mass print always seemed backwards, especially when indie devs are scraping by and a font costs more than your backend. no wonder people end up using “free alternatives” without looking too hard at where they came from.

I am of the opinion that the licenses for fonts in software are too expensive, but why is the pricing ‘backwards’? Book publishers don’t make a lot of profit, while software developers do.

> while software developers do.

Ouch!

What is wrong with me then?

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#87

Post by aleph_minus_one »

locallost wrote: post #71

Off-topic, but with this ad I always think of the IT Crowd spoof https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg

Relevant:

You wouldn't download a car

>https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/piracy-its-a-crime

Also be aware that some people actually consider the real PSA to be a Mandela effect since they consider "You wouldn't download a car" to be the "real, original" text of these PSAs, while in reality this was a popular parody/meme that was made out of the PSA:

> https://www.reddit.com/r/MandelaEffect/comments/113qibd/you_...

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#88

Post by testing1235 »

neilpanchal wrote: post #67
homebrewer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "peak of perfection" does not support even just European languages, not having full coverage even for Latin scripts. But it's a "love letter for the golden age of computing", and the golden age had massive problems with scripts for languages other than English, so maybe it's intentional. https://usgraphics.com/static/products/TX-02/datasheet/TX-02...

Hey, Berkeley Mono supports most Western European languages, can you tell me what's missing? I can add it. Btw, the tagline is about the aesthetics. :)

Hi Neil, I'm not that person you replied to but in my projects I require Cyrillic glyphs for Russian and Ukrainian texts. Also when checking out your website just now, I wasn't able to add a Berkeley Mono App License module in your ordering system. I assume I need a App License to embed the font in my app? But I also can't seem to find any information about the app license itself on your site as well.

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#89

Post by lifesaverluke »

jsheard wrote: post #76
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"

I would suggest not pushing your luck with webfonts though, because in that case you are distributing the actual copyrighted "code" of the font, not just the minimally protected shapes that it outputs. There are services which crawl the web actively looking for pirated webfonts on behalf of foundries (and their lawyers).

Got a link to such a service?

Re: You wouldn't steal a font

#90

Post by jsheard »

lifesaverluke wrote: post #89
jsheard wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suggest not pushing your luck with webfonts though, because in that case you are distributing the actual copyrighted "code" of the font, not just the minimally protected shapes that it outputs. There are services which crawl the web actively looking for pirated webfonts on behalf of foundries (and their lawyers).

Got a link to such a service?

https://www.fontradar.com is one. They also claim to analyze apps somehow.
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