4 ms·

Legal status of fonts and typefaces is INSANE. The cost of some of these fonts in $199 https://www.typography.com/fonts/isotope/overview/ https://www.typography

Legal status of fonts and typefaces is INSANE. The cost of some of these fonts in $199 https://www.typography.com/fonts/isotope/overview/ https://www.typography.com/fonts/isotope/overview/ And well you can kind of have a strange position in copyright law in the US and internationally. The cost of these fonts are up in the hundreds of dollars. Yet in US we have a mixed bag. Officially it is: > Typefaces cannot be protected by copyright in the United States (Code of Federal Regulations, Ch 37, Sec. 202.1(e); Eltra Corp. vs. Ringer). The idea that typefaces (rather than fonts, which are computer software) cannot be copyrighted in the United States is black letter law. 37 C.F.R. § 202.1(e). Under U.S. law, typefaces and their letter forms or glyphs are considered utilitarian objects whose public utility outweighs any private interest in protecting their creative elements. BUT we have cases where judgement has been awarded to Adobe and Target is a defendant in a lawsuit for their use of a unlicensed font in a video. I am conflicted. I love having fonts and I love open source, BUT I also appreciate the technical and artistic achievement these fonts produce. The BEST font for me has been Cardo and it has had the best license ever http://scholarsfonts.net/cardofnt.html http://scholarsfonts.net/cardofnt.html I studied several "ancient languages" and a font Cardo saved my academic life by making an awesome unicode font for my languages. One font for English, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin and others. Before that I had to write my papers in Latex just to cover the languages or transliterate them (ugh). Here is a font author that I have used and even purchased fonts from. She now has a donation based price model. https://www.dafont.com/kimberly-geswein.d1468 https://www.dafont.com/kimberly-geswein.d1468 Hoping she has success with this model and switches more to this model and it works for everyone. Microsoft's Font FAQ - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/fonts/font-faq https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/fonts/font-faq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protection_of_typefaces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...

tptacek 8y ago
It is incredibly difficult, time-consuming, highly-skilled work to create typefaces in the ranges of weights at the scale discussed in this article. At the same time, literally nobody _needs_ an fancy custom typeface; you can accomplish any expressive task you have, competently, with the fonts accompanying your OS. Expensive typefaces are a form of fashion. If they light you up (they do for me!), pay for them. Otherwise, use free fonts. There's really no insanity here. People pay through the nose for mechanical watches, handbags, shoes, furniture, orchids, and chefs knives, despite perfectly satisficing alternatives at minimal cost. It would be weird to complain about the insanity of regulations that allows Sakai to charge $5,000 for a knife when equivalently functional knives are available for $100. We all understand what's happening when people buy them. Same with typefaces.
- baldfat 8y ago
  > There's really no insanity here. No the insanity is 100% the legal status of fonts and typefaces in copyright law. They contradict each other. > pay for them. Otherwise, use free fonts I did state I have paid for some fonts. I wasn't mad about the idea of paying money BUT the prices are extravagant. TLDR for bellow: Things for creative people shouldn't be so expensive they are then reserved for only the elite or corporate world. I am an opinionated person and my career has been varied and one of my favorite roles is being the "tech guy" who is also the "creative person" of the company. So I take the official photos for my company and I also produce videos. I use to do it with my own personal equipment but now I have much better gear that the company has purchased for my job. I have also owned my own recording studio and had a small record label. My bands ended up touring the world, getting on MTV (When they use to still play music videos) and move on to bigger Indie Labels. (Side note: the most these guys made was $7,000 per person a year after touring cost). I own expensive gear and I have thousands of dollars in plugins and programs I personally own. Many audio plugins are $300+ and the software I have paid over $1,000 for one program. These plugins shouldn't cost more than $50. Applications should be free with option of paying in for certain extra non-essential features. (Resolve was a $3,000 video editor 4 years ago and now it is available for commercial use for free and $299 for the professional features which I rarely use). I want everyone to have the ability to fulfill their creative outlets and if they have the ability to make a living awesome. People who make the tools should also be able to make a living, but not so expensive and overpriced that they cater to only those who have expendable income or corporate money to spend. Right now in music production the way these instruments are used by many is through piracy. Heck Kanye West used a pirated instrument created by Deadmou5. https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/dance/6897291/deadmau5-kanye-west-pirate-bay https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/dance/6897291/deadma... The instrument Kanye pirated is a synthesizer called Serum. It's $190. So one way that has changed is they have a rent to own model. You pay $10 a month and you use it right away, but it also takes $10 off the price. You stop using it and stopped paying for a few months no problem just start right back from where you ended. Another thing in music is now the plugin package I paid $1500 for in 1999 is now $400 and on sale you can grab it for $180 and you have access to the same plugins that Grammy Award winning artist use. Why should it not come to fonts where people can pay $5 per font or say $50 for a complex font. Many of these $200+ fonts are initiative changes of a dozen other fonts. I believe fonts are awesome and well worth it BUT they shouldn't price the vast majority of people from using them legally.

tptacek 8y ago

It is incredibly difficult, time-consuming, highly-skilled work to create typefaces in the ranges of weights at the scale discussed in this article. At the same time, literally nobody _needs_ an fancy custom typeface; you can accomplish any expressive task you have, competently, with the fonts accompanying your OS. Expensive typefaces are a form of fashion. If they light you up (they do for me!), pay for them. Otherwise, use free fonts. There's really no insanity here. People pay through the nose for mechanical watches, handbags, shoes, furniture, orchids, and chefs knives, despite perfectly satisficing alternatives at minimal cost. It would be weird to complain about the insanity of regulations that allows Sakai to charge $5,000 for a knife when equivalently functional knives are available for $100. We all understand what's happening when people buy them. Same with typefaces.

baldfat 8y ago
> There's really no insanity here. No the insanity is 100% the legal status of fonts and typefaces in copyright law. They contradict each other. > pay for them. Otherwise, use free fonts I did state I have paid for some fonts. I wasn't mad about the idea of paying money BUT the prices are extravagant. TLDR for bellow: Things for creative people shouldn't be so expensive they are then reserved for only the elite or corporate world. I am an opinionated person and my career has been varied and one of my favorite roles is being the "tech guy" who is also the "creative person" of the company. So I take the official photos for my company and I also produce videos. I use to do it with my own personal equipment but now I have much better gear that the company has purchased for my job. I have also owned my own recording studio and had a small record label. My bands ended up touring the world, getting on MTV (When they use to still play music videos) and move on to bigger Indie Labels. (Side note: the most these guys made was $7,000 per person a year after touring cost). I own expensive gear and I have thousands of dollars in plugins and programs I personally own. Many audio plugins are $300+ and the software I have paid over $1,000 for one program. These plugins shouldn't cost more than $50. Applications should be free with option of paying in for certain extra non-essential features. (Resolve was a $3,000 video editor 4 years ago and now it is available for commercial use for free and $299 for the professional features which I rarely use). I want everyone to have the ability to fulfill their creative outlets and if they have the ability to make a living awesome. People who make the tools should also be able to make a living, but not so expensive and overpriced that they cater to only those who have expendable income or corporate money to spend. Right now in music production the way these instruments are used by many is through piracy. Heck Kanye West used a pirated instrument created by Deadmou5. https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/dance/6897291/deadmau5-kanye-west-pirate-bay https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/dance/6897291/deadma... The instrument Kanye pirated is a synthesizer called Serum. It's $190. So one way that has changed is they have a rent to own model. You pay $10 a month and you use it right away, but it also takes $10 off the price. You stop using it and stopped paying for a few months no problem just start right back from where you ended. Another thing in music is now the plugin package I paid $1500 for in 1999 is now $400 and on sale you can grab it for $180 and you have access to the same plugins that Grammy Award winning artist use. Why should it not come to fonts where people can pay $5 per font or say $50 for a complex font. Many of these $200+ fonts are initiative changes of a dozen other fonts. I believe fonts are awesome and well worth it BUT they shouldn't price the vast majority of people from using them legally.