7 ms·

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

by jzunit 7y ago

Brendinooo 7y ago
Yikes. You ever try making a font? Do you know how many hours it takes and what kind of profit margins you're eating into?
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  It entirely depends on how OP was using the fonts.
- jzunit 7y ago
  The profit margins we are eating into is exactly ZERO. Why? because if most of the time i need to actually pay for it, i'll just use the cheaper alternative: Google Fonts. There will be times when I need to use this font and make something that will go live. That's the time to buy a font. If font making is not profitable, then don't make fonts.
  - Brendinooo 7y ago
    This attitude is absolutely bonkers. Someone is making a product and telling you what you can and cannot do with it, and then you decide that none of that applies to you, because...I don't know, you're entitled to use it if you happen to see it? "There will be times when I need to use this font and make something that will go live. That's the time to buy a font." - that depends on the license that the font foundry grants you. "If font making is not profitable [due to lost sales via piracy], then don't make fonts"...some kind of mental gymnastics there. "I will take freely from you and if you can't afford to let me do that, it's your fault for making it in the first place" is a tough ground to stand on.
    - jzunit 7y ago
      Most of the people who are taking your fonts are also making a product. We understand the need to make a living and the difficulty of making a product. I hope you get paid for what you do but you don't get to decide the market size for your product when it is a digital good. The market does. There is a market for paid specialty fonts used on a website. People should pay for that. However, there is not much of a market for paid fonts used in Sketch when developers and designers are testing out different concepts they MIGHT use in production. You complaining that you are failing to monetizing off that non-existent market is completely bonkers for me. The ground I stand on is reality. You're living in a fantasy land where musicians still get paid big dollars for records and where journalism is a lucrative career.
      - Brendinooo 7y ago
        > You don't get to decide the market size for your product when it is a digital good. The market does. "It's easy for me to acquire content against the content creator's wishes, therefore I should dictate the market." > There is not much of a market for paid fonts used in Sketch when developers and designers are testing out different concepts they MIGHT use in production. Never said there was. There's an easy solution: don't take a font that doesn't belong to you. This all boils down to "I want something and don't want to pay what the creator thinks it's worth." It's disrespectful, and it's straight-up entitlement. Just don't use the font. Nobody owes you a particular typeface. > The ground I stand on is reality. The reality is that it's easy to do the wrong thing here, so you do it, then try to pretzel your way into thinking that it's not morally wrong. Think someone's overcharging? Then don't buy the product.
        jzunit 7y ago
        The reality is that most people like myself are continue to do this regardless of your morality rant. The problem is that your morality argument is based on licensing terms and the legal system. The internet has its own morality that is somewhat untethered to legality: use what you can get, pay for what you feel you should. You can claim that this violates copyright or morality but people vote with their clicks and git clones - there is nothing you can do to change that. And you can scream and write these type of blog posts all you want but really it just ads to the Streisand effect. You think this blog post net increased or decreased the awareness and use of github as a source of fonts?
- empath75 7y ago
  Most people that pirate stuff never would have bought it to begin with. If pirated stuff wasn’t available, they’d have just gone without or gone with a free alternative. I don’t expect it has much impact over all.
- gohbgl 7y ago
  Find a better business model. I could care less about people not being able to extract enough money from their monopoly rights.
Andrex 7y ago
Not if you're a font designer or type foundry.
- drngdds 7y ago
  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.
  - Brendinooo 7y ago
    Then stick to the SIL fonts, if there are indeed enough of them.
  - favorited 7y ago
    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.
    - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      There are enough fonts, I don't go trawling github to download new ones for my projects. And now in the future if I fork a project for my personal use I will make sure to remove any fonts I find in it.
    - filoleg 7y ago
      How do you know if someone using a font in their github repo paid for it or not?
      - the_pwner224 7y ago
        Because it is very extremely unlikely that the font license the font purchaser paid for allows them to distribute it to the public. I could see this happening in a repo by Google/MS/FB/etc., but it probably would be extremely expensive for them. Any other instance of this sort of sharing is unlikely enough that it can be assumed to be illegitimate.

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

by jzunit 7y ago

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

Yikes. You ever try making a font? Do you know how many hours it takes and what kind of profit margins you're eating into?

oh_sigh 7y ago
It entirely depends on how OP was using the fonts.
jzunit 7y ago
The profit margins we are eating into is exactly ZERO. Why? because if most of the time i need to actually pay for it, i'll just use the cheaper alternative: Google Fonts. There will be times when I need to use this font and make something that will go live. That's the time to buy a font. If font making is not profitable, then don't make fonts.
- Brendinooo 7y ago
  This attitude is absolutely bonkers. Someone is making a product and telling you what you can and cannot do with it, and then you decide that none of that applies to you, because...I don't know, you're entitled to use it if you happen to see it? "There will be times when I need to use this font and make something that will go live. That's the time to buy a font." - that depends on the license that the font foundry grants you. "If font making is not profitable [due to lost sales via piracy], then don't make fonts"...some kind of mental gymnastics there. "I will take freely from you and if you can't afford to let me do that, it's your fault for making it in the first place" is a tough ground to stand on.
  - jzunit 7y ago
    Most of the people who are taking your fonts are also making a product. We understand the need to make a living and the difficulty of making a product. I hope you get paid for what you do but you don't get to decide the market size for your product when it is a digital good. The market does. There is a market for paid specialty fonts used on a website. People should pay for that. However, there is not much of a market for paid fonts used in Sketch when developers and designers are testing out different concepts they MIGHT use in production. You complaining that you are failing to monetizing off that non-existent market is completely bonkers for me. The ground I stand on is reality. You're living in a fantasy land where musicians still get paid big dollars for records and where journalism is a lucrative career.
    - Brendinooo 7y ago
      > You don't get to decide the market size for your product when it is a digital good. The market does. "It's easy for me to acquire content against the content creator's wishes, therefore I should dictate the market." > There is not much of a market for paid fonts used in Sketch when developers and designers are testing out different concepts they MIGHT use in production. Never said there was. There's an easy solution: don't take a font that doesn't belong to you. This all boils down to "I want something and don't want to pay what the creator thinks it's worth." It's disrespectful, and it's straight-up entitlement. Just don't use the font. Nobody owes you a particular typeface. > The ground I stand on is reality. The reality is that it's easy to do the wrong thing here, so you do it, then try to pretzel your way into thinking that it's not morally wrong. Think someone's overcharging? Then don't buy the product.
      - jzunit 7y ago
        The reality is that most people like myself are continue to do this regardless of your morality rant. The problem is that your morality argument is based on licensing terms and the legal system. The internet has its own morality that is somewhat untethered to legality: use what you can get, pay for what you feel you should. You can claim that this violates copyright or morality but people vote with their clicks and git clones - there is nothing you can do to change that. And you can scream and write these type of blog posts all you want but really it just ads to the Streisand effect. You think this blog post net increased or decreased the awareness and use of github as a source of fonts?
empath75 7y ago
Most people that pirate stuff never would have bought it to begin with. If pirated stuff wasn’t available, they’d have just gone without or gone with a free alternative. I don’t expect it has much impact over all.
gohbgl 7y ago
Find a better business model. I could care less about people not being able to extract enough money from their monopoly rights.

Andrex 7y ago

Not if you're a font designer or type foundry.

drngdds 7y ago
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.
- Brendinooo 7y ago
  Then stick to the SIL fonts, if there are indeed enough of them.
- favorited 7y ago
  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.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    There are enough fonts, I don't go trawling github to download new ones for my projects. And now in the future if I fork a project for my personal use I will make sure to remove any fonts I find in it.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    How do you know if someone using a font in their github repo paid for it or not?
    - the_pwner224 7y ago
      Because it is very extremely unlikely that the font license the font purchaser paid for allows them to distribute it to the public. I could see this happening in a repo by Google/MS/FB/etc., but it probably would be extremely expensive for them. Any other instance of this sort of sharing is unlikely enough that it can be assumed to be illegitimate.