12 ms·

Font licensing is ill, please help heal it

150 points by dna_polymerase 5y ago

JustFinishedBSG 5y ago
Completely agree. Personally, I've decided not to buy a font anymore if it doesn't have a "Universal" license that encompasses all uses at once. I want to be able to use the font however I see fit and not feel FOMO'd in buying a Desktop+Web license because what if I ever want to use it on the web might as well get the discount now. Wait now I can't use it in an app ! Damn. Example: DJR licensing is awesome [1] [1] https://djr.com/license https://djr.com/license
- rocqua 5y ago
  It looks to me like their licenses still have limits on monthly page-views. Not an option of "I get to use the font whenenver I want wherever I want".
  - JustFinishedBSG 5y ago
    True, but that's the best compromise to me next to open-source / ofl fonts (because let's not forget that fonts are software). I'm OK with paying for a level of use as long as it's generous and I'm not limited completely arbitrarily. You'd be surprised by the number of foundries that explicitly forbid sub setting of the fonts (because that makes you an evil hacker I guess?), so you're not allowed to only use Latin on your website, gotta load the whole fucking thing. The font has weird kerning and you want to fix it? Yeah, not sorry not allowed either. The restrictions in font licenses are completely ridiculous.
    - netr0ute 5y ago
      On my website, I can't measure exactly how many page views there are because there are no tracking scripts or other ways to discern between bots and humans. That means any font that has a page view limitation is a complete non-starter for me. Therefore, it seems like OFL is the only "reasonable" option other than an unlimited font license.
      - JustFinishedBSG 5y ago
        Fortunately page views are based on the honor system. So you can use the fonts as long as its in good faith ... But there are so many good OFL or free fonts nowadays that it's not a problem anyway.
        netr0ute 5y ago
        What happens if my website gets really popular and nobody's there checking the analytics? Then that's a problem unless it's perpetually babysat all because of a font.
        pessimizer 5y ago
        The font designer certainly isn't checking your analytics if you aren't. I assume that's the reason for the honor system.
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- dna_polymerase 5y ago
  Also worth mentioning: https://mbtype.com/ https://mbtype.com/ by Matthew Butterick of practicaltypography.com fame offers a really permissive license for his fonts: https://mbtype.com/license/ https://mbtype.com/license/ .
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stevenhubertron 5y ago
Just a data point. My team manages about 15 different brands with a couple hundred million annual page views and we pay north of $100K a year for fonts and believe that to be a good value for the money. The difference between a good Monotype font and a free or cheap font is worlds different when your concerned with a brand looking as good as can be. The cheaper fonts sometimes have odd space in them that make letter spacing or line-height changes look horrible.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  Purely out of curiosity, have you done any testing to see if the better fonts lead to better results?
  - stevenhubertron 5y ago
    We haven't. Although we do plenty of testing in general. We don't view it as a ROI driver, just an element of a strong brand. Which is much more subjective.
  - dhosek 5y ago
    Surely just aesthetic pleasure is worth something? Shall we all live, work and play in brutalist utilitarian buildings unless it can be demonstrated that there are better results from something else? I used to work at eharmony. One of the biggest complaints we had from users was that paid users were still shown ads. The users hated it, but the analytics showed that we made more money with the ads than without the ads so to hell with the users' experience on the site, we had better results with the ads.
cxr 5y ago
I think the author is probably mistaken in their understanding of something here. Foundries don't license fonts for "desktop use" on seemingly generous terms out of the goodness of their hearts. It's because they have no choice. Letterforms are not copyrightable. The font file†, however, is. Once a typeset character sequence is printed or rasterized and flashed on the screen, any license that a foundry cooks up trying to control that use would be unenforceable. The only leverage they have is controlling the distribution of the file. As it turns out, due to the way Web fonts work, this means they do have leverage on the Web—for technical reasons. If the foundries had a choice, they wouldn't opt to license Web fonts more generously, they'd opt to extract more money out of the traditional uses. (Note that this is written from the perspective of the way that copyright works in the US.) † EDIT: I realized just now while brushing my teeth that this might lead to further mistaken understanding when put this way. So pretend instead that I said something like "what's in the font file", and pay particular attention to <https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23>.
- thayne 5y ago
  Fonts can also be protected by design patents, although I'm not sure how common that is.
- kjrose 5y ago
  I did not know this. It makes a whole lot of sense and is totally reasonable. Does this mean that a graphics designer who buys a font can just use it at will without royalties as long as they don't distribute the file?
  - zinekeller 5y ago
    Yes. That's why there are some knock-off fonts that is fully legal in the United States (apart from the name, but that's trademarks). Note: US law (for rather obvious reasons). Europe (depending on the country) has either a design trademark or a design copyright available, which means that foundries can (in theory) control their use there (in practice, uniform worldwide licensing means they go for the lowest common denominator). Asian (mainly East Asian) IP laws does have a nuance, which means that whether a design is copyrightable depends if the purpose of the said design is utilitarian or artistic.
spywaregorilla 5y ago
How big is the market for fonts? Is there a reason for this or is it mostly just the market being dumb?
- cmelbye 5y ago
  Everyone uses fonts, of course, and they're an important factor in how people perceive a brand. A lot of work goes into the subtleties that people don't necessarily notice but will definitely "feel." Companies might start out paying these "off the shelf" prices, but everything in life is negotiable and they'll eventually work out a better deal. However, now the company has tied their brand identity to a typeface that is being licensed to them with a variable cost. So eventually, they may commission a custom typeface which could offer the potential of full ownership without perpetual fees.
chairmanwow1 5y ago
People gotta get paid, but I don’t understand why their aren’t competing models in the market? Anyone have any insight into why this is the case?
- dylan604 5y ago
  Why compete when you can do the exact same model and roll in the cash yourself? Business people hate leaving money on the table.
- omnimus 5y ago
  The market evolved into this state. Traditionally fonts were licensed as as software licenses per machine. It was not great but it was a standard. With web there was more opportunity to change price based on impressions. But for big projects - logos, tv ads etc. you almost always need a special license. The problem is to make fonts cheap for solo designer doing local prints where 60usd is a lot vs designer in agency doing multi national ad where 3000usd is drop in budget. There are competing models in the market. As print slowly disappears most foundries are pricing on amount of web visits, app downloads and social media followers. Some progressive ones are even moving to pricing based on size of company / number of employees like Dinamo https://abcdinamo.com/news/about-our-pricing https://abcdinamo.com/news/about-our-pricing. There is also Fontstand https://fontstand.com/ https://fontstand.com/ thats "reting" of fonts but that's again mostly for small desktop publishers.
- blihp 5y ago
  See the comment re: copyright issues. Here in the U.S. the First Amendment severely limits what one can and can't do regarding font licensing. Restricting what one can and can't do with a (rasterized, at least) font has historically been interpreted as limiting speech. As a result, it's generally not possible to do the typical software licensing thing and say 'you can do this and this but not that' as the First Amendment will steamroll much of what one tries to put in the license.
  - dhosek 5y ago
    Nope nope nope. The first amendment has nothing to do with it. A big part of it is that type design was largely a European activity until the late nineteenth century/early twentieth century. American typefounders lived off copied designs (and even as America gave birth to Linn Boyd Benton, Bruce Rogers and Frederic Goudy, there was still a lot of stealing happening at the big American foundries (the innovation happening in the US tended to be more technical than artistic. American Monotype has approximately zero noteworthy typefaces created under its auspices, while its English counterpart had a long streak of notable designs released in the first half of the twentieth century which are responsible for the look of modern book typography). This history of stealing designs for competitive reasons was a bit part of why there was resistance on the part of the big players in the industry to seriously pushing for typeface design protection. While Bitstream had Matthew Carter designing excellent faces for them (and overseeing licensed designs from ITC), the vast majority of their type designs (all the ones named style + number), were slavish clones of other companies' designs. The big companies make the bulk of their typeface income not from retail sales but from licensing deals (e.g., Apple and Microsoft made licensing deals with Adobe and Monotype respectively for most of their system fonts, although some smaller design houses like Hoefler & Co., Bigelow & Holmes and Tiro Typeworks (off the type of my head) have managed to get some of that licensing. The late Arthur Baker made the biggest part of his lifetime income from a licensing deal with HP.
denvaar 5y ago
I agree with this. It's too complicated and frustrating to use a licensed font on the web. The argument is that people who make fonts deserve to be compensated for their work, and I agree. There has to be a better way though. I avoid using fonts that I love because the licensing just gets in the way.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > There has to be a better way though. Crowdfunding has been extremely successful at fostering the creation of freely-licensed content while handsomely rewarding the creators for that same content. (It's easy to miss this because it's only a fraction of what's crowdfunded as a whole, but free content still wins wrt. its broader impact.) There's no reason why this model could not be applicable to the design of new, high-quality fonts. Font makers only have to name their price, commit to an open license on the product and roll the dice.
lmeyerov 5y ago
Yep I remember backing FontAwesome's initial Kickstarter and, as they grew and evolved, emailing for licensing for basic on-prem / OEM / content editor use, and it was clear the modern web folks like them didn't have a way to sustain anything beyond their saas flow. As with the rest of OSS, big companies are starting to release their own equivalents as they need these kinds of use cases. So it's near-term right of FA for sustainable or more profitable growth to do their model, but long-term a big existential risk. Was frustrating as someone explicitly and demonstrably ready to pay and valuing ISVs thriving here and being forced to go the bigco oss way.
asadkn 5y ago
And that's why I either use the awesome opensource fonts (they've really very good lately), or use Adobe Fonts (formerly TypeKit). As much as I hate Adobe, the rented fixed monthly payment is the only logical alternative to current font pricing models for web. Rent Photoshop for $10 a month and you get Adobe Fonts for web with unlimited usage, as a bonus.
- omnimus 5y ago
  Logical alternative for you. 10usd month through corporation is exactly the way Spotify is robbing musicians. Lets not forget these people dont have live performances or merch to fall back to. Check this https://fontstand.com/ https://fontstand.com/ its fair subscription font service.
__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
If you're in the business of font making, then I'm sorry about this, but... Which of these would be better for the vast majority? - We remove IP concerns from fonts entirely. All existing fonts are free to use however you want, but there are no incentives to commercially produce more fonts. - We find a better way for people to continue to have to think about whether they're allowed to use a given font instead of focusing more fully on what they want to communicate. It's the role of economics to address problems caused by scarcity. But are fonts scarce? Are they scarcer than the attention required to use them? When do we say, "good job, that's enough fonts" and move on? Or do we really need to reserve a fraction of the global mindshare for font design in perpituity? I'm happy to be convinced of this, it's just that I don't see it from here.
- tptacek 5y ago
  I think it's revealing that message board people are so quick to extend arguments against intellectual property to typefaces. It's hard to think of something that people "need" less than a proprietary font; there are thousands of free ones, and there is no utility benefit to any of the non-free ones. It's hard to see a motivation for "liberating" them beyond spite.
  - danShumway 5y ago
    I think you and GP are in some ways saying the same thing. > But are fonts scarce? Are they scarcer than the attention required to use them? When do we say, "good job, that's enough fonts" and move on? You disagree about the idea of removing IP protections from fonts, but beyond that you seem to agree that Libre font collections may basically be Good Enough(tm) and that there might not be much of a need or justification to waste time thinking about the proprietary/commercial market at all. I do generally disagree with both ideas, I think people are a little too quick to dismiss the creative and functional value of new fonts, and I think that typography as a skill is generally undervalued in technical circles. But that disagreement aside, I didn't read GP's post as an argument that there's a pressing need to liberate fonts, just that to them it's not clear what copyright is even protecting here in the first place, given how little (again, to them) functional value that proprietary fonts provide.
metalliqaz 5y ago
This article makes a strange contradiction. "people visit websites for information they’re interested in, not design and not the font in which text is rendered in" If that's the case, then what's the problem? You can use plenty of attractive fonts already installed on client devices, or something like Google Fonts for free. If the design isn't important, then that's more than enough.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  Yes, if it didn't matter, why would I care that some fonts are crazy expensive.
webpdf 5y ago
https://twitter.com/WebPDFpro/status/1427911634387836935 https://twitter.com/WebPDFpro/status/1427911634387836935 Helvetica Now Variable Complete Family Unlimited for only $2,705,353,197,552,556,500.00 That is two quintillion seven hundred five quadrillion three hundred fifty-three trillion one hundred ninety-seven billion five hundred fifty-two million five hundred fifty-six thousand five hundred dollars!!
thayne 5y ago
I've seen licenses where you pay per CPU on the server(s). What does that even mean if you serve the font using something like S3? And if you use a CDN, do you have to pay for the CPUs at the edge too? Unreasonable licensing for web fonts results in companies not buying those fonts.
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fimdomeio 5y ago
One thing that baffles me in the last webfonts i’ve used is that in the install instructions the css has some @import tracking line and an explanation that the font does not work without that line, which is a plain lie. If i already have some troubles understanding charging by page views, trying to force my users to be tracked by them is just crazy.
- omnimus 5y ago
  I think you overestimate how technical most of these type foundries are. The industry is basically few huge corporations like Monotype, Adobe, Google Fonts and then 100s of tiny independent 1-5 person companies. These are no web engineers and mostly are just somehow trying to figure out how to survive. I wouldn't think there's much malice behind it... more like incompetence. Most of webfonts sales are delivered just as .woff files to be selfhosted. Probably also reason why people use them because Google Fonts exists specifically to track people.
graupel 5y ago
I just purchased $12,000 worth of fonts and it nearly broke me (mentally) in terms of how to do it the right way across web, desktop and app. The system truly is broken in every regard.
Rd6n6 5y ago
All the webfonts I’ve ever seen have a variation of this clause, which I think unintentionally makes them unusable on the web for their stated purposes. Do they think that @font-face prevents downloads? Anybody can just right click in the network tab iirc > The Licensee may use the Licensed Webfont(s) only on the web, for styling Websites, using the @font-face selector in CSS files, subject to the following restrictions: > 1. The Licensee may not link to, nor put online, any version of the font downloadable and installable by any third party
superfamicom 5y ago
I love typography but decided to follow the trend of removing custom fonts from my websites as the value add is actually very, very low. A lot can be achieved with some simple letter spacing and line height, as well as antialiasing correctly. I looked into paying for nice custom typefaces but the cost is too much. I have been using the same open source typeface for programming since I found it many, many years ago. The industry reminds me of music licensing, there are so many free choices that are public domain, but if you have the money you flex and spend it on something custom, even if it is more or less the same as the free option, because that distinction is made by the end users. It reminds me of 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' using public domain music for many of the scenes and the theme, and now I hear that tune in many TV shows.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  Please don’t fix fonts with letter spacing and other hacks. Fonts are engineered with specific fitting (even before kerning pairs are added) and this would just make things worse. You can however continue to use open source fonts! There is nothing wrong with that. There are many amazing free fonts out there that compete with commercial alternatives. But to say that Fonts don’t add any value is preposterous.
  - superfamicom 5y ago
    I didn't mention fixing anywhere. Having spent a portion of my career as a graphic designer, letter spacing / kerning was used in literally every print piece I ever made, so to suggest they are to be used as provided is preposterous.
    - robocat 5y ago
      You just reminded me of https://type.method.ac/ https://type.method.ac/ where everyone can quickly check their font kerning skills against a standard. Fun for us developers!
pdimitar 5y ago
Calling out for the common folk or small business to pay for the fonts they used is doomed to fail. (Not saying the article does that, just pointing it out.) Calling out to fight insane legal practices is even less likely to ever succeed as well. IMO a good solution to both licensing plus compensating the hard-working people who make fonts would be: 1. Integrate those fonts in the mainstream browsers; 2. Have the browser vendors pay a flat fee to the font creators, annually. I think something like $20_000 per font per year is quite fair and definitely won't even register in the balance sheets of Google, Apple and Mozilla. There's no way this whole thing can be solved by making small customers pay. Even if some do most will not so such a business strategy simply doesn't scale. Even if I make $10_000 a month from a small business of mine I'd still not consider paying something like $500 for a font unless I am sure I am going to use it for 4-5 years. In my eyes it's an insanely high cost for just one tiny part of my online business. But one thing I don't know and would love to learn more about is this: are the professional fonts usually paid per month or only once for a lifetime? If the latter then I guess many smaller business could still bear the cost.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  Let’s not bake anymore things in a browser. There are too many typefaces. I don’t want to rely on the browser to integrate a work of art that I created. The way it is, the current situation, allows the typographer to sell directly to consumers and select appropriate license. Whether that’s expensive or too restrictive is besides the point. There is a plethora of cheap fonts. Not only would your idea kill creativity and bring font development to a standstill, it would put too much power in the hands of browsers which are already too powerful.
phkahler 5y ago
I wish web sites would stop using custom fonts. It's a waste of bandwidth.
- omnimus 5y ago
  Javascript is waste of cpu cycles and bandwidth.
boondaburrah 5y ago
One thing that grinds my gears is that ebook font licensing is somehow separate from pdf font licensing and on a per title basis, despite them being /the same thing/. Similarly, application embed licensing and webfont licensing are separate, which kinda makes sense, until you make a webapp. (In reality though, I believe the spirit of the distinction is whether the user of the app can enter any text and have it appear in that font, but they don't say that.)
tomc1985 5y ago
Honestly the whole idea of creators controlling their IP is fucked. Everywhere, everyone wants to get in on carving out a million monetizable use cases while the rest of us collapse under the weight of an entirely bullshit system of rights enforcement. We should not have to walk on eggshells! Here's an alternative: anything you put out there, isn't yours any more. It belongs to the public. Art, software, music, fonts... it is in the hands of the people. Your role as creator is limited to stewardship.
- vmception 5y ago
  Only a piece of the solution, you still need the economic incentive, and that incentive shouldn't be just hoping you're popular enough for people to donate to your stewardship. Let me know what you come up with, there are likely some crafty solutions.
  - tomc1985 5y ago
    Universal Basic Income could help a lot here. The rise of open-source and volunteer movements shows that a lot of people want to work on what they are passionate about, if only for their jobs and the need to earn money. UBI may not solve this entirely but if it can free people of the need to worry about their economics whilst simultaneously allowing people to do whatever they want, for a lot of folks that is enough. Additionally, I don't really see the issue with selling (NOT licensing) something up-front, if there is a culture of setting pricing to be reasonable and fair instead of the current leave-no-money-on-the-table approach. Those that want to earn above and beyond can still find employment in critical services...banking, healthcare, government, whatever, while those that want to opt out of employment are free to do so on their terms.
    - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
      I like the way CirclesUBI handles it. If you appreciate a craftsman's work you can "trust" them. Trust is a pact to value their UBI tokens as much as you value your own. So you don't have be in the market for a font to support fontmakers (or anything else).
Wistar 5y ago
In 2014, when I was working on post-production for a TV ad, the producer wanted to use a typeface, Typotheque's Tribute Tribunal Std Bold, until he found out that the "broadcast and film" license fee for a single year of on-air use in North America was $17,465.
marstall 5y ago
new to the fonts space, but I really wanted a totally unique look for a new site I'm building and came upon an font foundry called photo-lettering. The story of how itsfonts came to exist and be available on the web is truly cool (and informs this debate a little). Photo-lettering, Inc aka PLINC was a high-end foundry and design firm in New York City beginning in the 1930s that was used as a volume service provider by Madison Avenue (think proofs flying across midtown via courier). Their unique claim to fame was that each individual letter of their font faces existed as a large photographic plate which was then projected onto layouts using a proprietary overhead system. The result satisfied the exacting needs of magazine designers and such in this era. Fast-forward to the present, and the fonts, which are supercool in a 60s 70s way (think warholesque), have been scanned and lovingly converted to webfonts, using various advanced features available in opentype etc. They do use that funny desktop/webfont pricing described by the OP. I'm more than willing to plunk down $125 apiece for the 2 fonts I'm using because of the obvious value this company is offering. The pricing does get into nosebleed territory relatively quickly, but this is a product I feel really good about supporting. For the full PLINC rabbit hole ... https://www.photolettering.com/about/history/drawer_one/ https://www.photolettering.com/about/history/drawer_one/
indymike 5y ago
If I'm honest with myself, when I get mad at font licensing it is because there is a great mismatch between my budget and the font publisher's price list.
ordiel 5y ago
A very simplified comment... Use the freaking font, pay none for it due to how such complexities for it are managed, wait for the font owner to find your site and try to do some legal paperwork against you and then see how all of that legal stuff is just not useful in whichever conuntry you are actually on...
Shorel 5y ago
Ha ha ha ha. I put the New York Times font in my PocketBook eReader. Its name is "FB Web Use Only". I don't care.
mark-r 5y ago
The silver lining in all this is that it has led to the availability of free font licenses. Google Fonts is a fantastic resource.

Completely agree. Personally, I've decided not to buy a font anymore if it doesn't have a "Universal" license that encompasses all uses at once. I want to be able to use the font however I see fit and not feel FOMO'd in buying a Desktop+Web license because what if I ever want to use it on the web might as well get the discount now. Wait now I can't use it in an app ! Damn. Example: DJR licensing is awesome [1] [1] https://djr.com/license https://djr.com/license

rocqua 5y ago
It looks to me like their licenses still have limits on monthly page-views. Not an option of "I get to use the font whenenver I want wherever I want".
- JustFinishedBSG 5y ago
  True, but that's the best compromise to me next to open-source / ofl fonts (because let's not forget that fonts are software). I'm OK with paying for a level of use as long as it's generous and I'm not limited completely arbitrarily. You'd be surprised by the number of foundries that explicitly forbid sub setting of the fonts (because that makes you an evil hacker I guess?), so you're not allowed to only use Latin on your website, gotta load the whole fucking thing. The font has weird kerning and you want to fix it? Yeah, not sorry not allowed either. The restrictions in font licenses are completely ridiculous.
  - netr0ute 5y ago
    On my website, I can't measure exactly how many page views there are because there are no tracking scripts or other ways to discern between bots and humans. That means any font that has a page view limitation is a complete non-starter for me. Therefore, it seems like OFL is the only "reasonable" option other than an unlimited font license.
    - JustFinishedBSG 5y ago
      Fortunately page views are based on the honor system. So you can use the fonts as long as its in good faith ... But there are so many good OFL or free fonts nowadays that it's not a problem anyway.
      - netr0ute 5y ago
        What happens if my website gets really popular and nobody's there checking the analytics? Then that's a problem unless it's perpetually babysat all because of a font.
        pessimizer 5y ago
        The font designer certainly isn't checking your analytics if you aren't. I assume that's the reason for the honor system.
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dna_polymerase 5y ago
Also worth mentioning: https://mbtype.com/ https://mbtype.com/ by Matthew Butterick of practicaltypography.com fame offers a really permissive license for his fonts: https://mbtype.com/license/ https://mbtype.com/license/ .
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stevenhubertron 5y ago

Just a data point. My team manages about 15 different brands with a couple hundred million annual page views and we pay north of $100K a year for fonts and believe that to be a good value for the money. The difference between a good Monotype font and a free or cheap font is worlds different when your concerned with a brand looking as good as can be. The cheaper fonts sometimes have odd space in them that make letter spacing or line-height changes look horrible.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
Purely out of curiosity, have you done any testing to see if the better fonts lead to better results?
- stevenhubertron 5y ago
  We haven't. Although we do plenty of testing in general. We don't view it as a ROI driver, just an element of a strong brand. Which is much more subjective.
- dhosek 5y ago
  Surely just aesthetic pleasure is worth something? Shall we all live, work and play in brutalist utilitarian buildings unless it can be demonstrated that there are better results from something else? I used to work at eharmony. One of the biggest complaints we had from users was that paid users were still shown ads. The users hated it, but the analytics showed that we made more money with the ads than without the ads so to hell with the users' experience on the site, we had better results with the ads.

cxr 5y ago

I think the author is probably mistaken in their understanding of something here. Foundries don't license fonts for "desktop use" on seemingly generous terms out of the goodness of their hearts. It's because they have no choice. Letterforms are not copyrightable. The font file†, however, is. Once a typeset character sequence is printed or rasterized and flashed on the screen, any license that a foundry cooks up trying to control that use would be unenforceable. The only leverage they have is controlling the distribution of the file. As it turns out, due to the way Web fonts work, this means they do have leverage on the Web—for technical reasons. If the foundries had a choice, they wouldn't opt to license Web fonts more generously, they'd opt to extract more money out of the traditional uses. (Note that this is written from the perspective of the way that copyright works in the US.) † EDIT: I realized just now while brushing my teeth that this might lead to further mistaken understanding when put this way. So pretend instead that I said something like "what's in the font file", and pay particular attention to <https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23>.

thayne 5y ago
Fonts can also be protected by design patents, although I'm not sure how common that is.
kjrose 5y ago
I did not know this. It makes a whole lot of sense and is totally reasonable. Does this mean that a graphics designer who buys a font can just use it at will without royalties as long as they don't distribute the file?
- zinekeller 5y ago
  Yes. That's why there are some knock-off fonts that is fully legal in the United States (apart from the name, but that's trademarks). Note: US law (for rather obvious reasons). Europe (depending on the country) has either a design trademark or a design copyright available, which means that foundries can (in theory) control their use there (in practice, uniform worldwide licensing means they go for the lowest common denominator). Asian (mainly East Asian) IP laws does have a nuance, which means that whether a design is copyrightable depends if the purpose of the said design is utilitarian or artistic.

spywaregorilla 5y ago

How big is the market for fonts? Is there a reason for this or is it mostly just the market being dumb?

cmelbye 5y ago
Everyone uses fonts, of course, and they're an important factor in how people perceive a brand. A lot of work goes into the subtleties that people don't necessarily notice but will definitely "feel." Companies might start out paying these "off the shelf" prices, but everything in life is negotiable and they'll eventually work out a better deal. However, now the company has tied their brand identity to a typeface that is being licensed to them with a variable cost. So eventually, they may commission a custom typeface which could offer the potential of full ownership without perpetual fees.

chairmanwow1 5y ago

People gotta get paid, but I don’t understand why their aren’t competing models in the market? Anyone have any insight into why this is the case?

dylan604 5y ago
Why compete when you can do the exact same model and roll in the cash yourself? Business people hate leaving money on the table.
omnimus 5y ago
The market evolved into this state. Traditionally fonts were licensed as as software licenses per machine. It was not great but it was a standard. With web there was more opportunity to change price based on impressions. But for big projects - logos, tv ads etc. you almost always need a special license. The problem is to make fonts cheap for solo designer doing local prints where 60usd is a lot vs designer in agency doing multi national ad where 3000usd is drop in budget. There are competing models in the market. As print slowly disappears most foundries are pricing on amount of web visits, app downloads and social media followers. Some progressive ones are even moving to pricing based on size of company / number of employees like Dinamo https://abcdinamo.com/news/about-our-pricing https://abcdinamo.com/news/about-our-pricing. There is also Fontstand https://fontstand.com/ https://fontstand.com/ thats "reting" of fonts but that's again mostly for small desktop publishers.
blihp 5y ago
See the comment re: copyright issues. Here in the U.S. the First Amendment severely limits what one can and can't do regarding font licensing. Restricting what one can and can't do with a (rasterized, at least) font has historically been interpreted as limiting speech. As a result, it's generally not possible to do the typical software licensing thing and say 'you can do this and this but not that' as the First Amendment will steamroll much of what one tries to put in the license.
- dhosek 5y ago
  Nope nope nope. The first amendment has nothing to do with it. A big part of it is that type design was largely a European activity until the late nineteenth century/early twentieth century. American typefounders lived off copied designs (and even as America gave birth to Linn Boyd Benton, Bruce Rogers and Frederic Goudy, there was still a lot of stealing happening at the big American foundries (the innovation happening in the US tended to be more technical than artistic. American Monotype has approximately zero noteworthy typefaces created under its auspices, while its English counterpart had a long streak of notable designs released in the first half of the twentieth century which are responsible for the look of modern book typography). This history of stealing designs for competitive reasons was a bit part of why there was resistance on the part of the big players in the industry to seriously pushing for typeface design protection. While Bitstream had Matthew Carter designing excellent faces for them (and overseeing licensed designs from ITC), the vast majority of their type designs (all the ones named style + number), were slavish clones of other companies' designs. The big companies make the bulk of their typeface income not from retail sales but from licensing deals (e.g., Apple and Microsoft made licensing deals with Adobe and Monotype respectively for most of their system fonts, although some smaller design houses like Hoefler & Co., Bigelow & Holmes and Tiro Typeworks (off the type of my head) have managed to get some of that licensing. The late Arthur Baker made the biggest part of his lifetime income from a licensing deal with HP.

denvaar 5y ago

I agree with this. It's too complicated and frustrating to use a licensed font on the web. The argument is that people who make fonts deserve to be compensated for their work, and I agree. There has to be a better way though. I avoid using fonts that I love because the licensing just gets in the way.

zozbot234 5y ago
> There has to be a better way though. Crowdfunding has been extremely successful at fostering the creation of freely-licensed content while handsomely rewarding the creators for that same content. (It's easy to miss this because it's only a fraction of what's crowdfunded as a whole, but free content still wins wrt. its broader impact.) There's no reason why this model could not be applicable to the design of new, high-quality fonts. Font makers only have to name their price, commit to an open license on the product and roll the dice.

lmeyerov 5y ago

Yep I remember backing FontAwesome's initial Kickstarter and, as they grew and evolved, emailing for licensing for basic on-prem / OEM / content editor use, and it was clear the modern web folks like them didn't have a way to sustain anything beyond their saas flow. As with the rest of OSS, big companies are starting to release their own equivalents as they need these kinds of use cases. So it's near-term right of FA for sustainable or more profitable growth to do their model, but long-term a big existential risk. Was frustrating as someone explicitly and demonstrably ready to pay and valuing ISVs thriving here and being forced to go the bigco oss way.

asadkn 5y ago

And that's why I either use the awesome opensource fonts (they've really very good lately), or use Adobe Fonts (formerly TypeKit). As much as I hate Adobe, the rented fixed monthly payment is the only logical alternative to current font pricing models for web. Rent Photoshop for $10 a month and you get Adobe Fonts for web with unlimited usage, as a bonus.

omnimus 5y ago
Logical alternative for you. 10usd month through corporation is exactly the way Spotify is robbing musicians. Lets not forget these people dont have live performances or merch to fall back to. Check this https://fontstand.com/ https://fontstand.com/ its fair subscription font service.

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago

If you're in the business of font making, then I'm sorry about this, but... Which of these would be better for the vast majority? - We remove IP concerns from fonts entirely. All existing fonts are free to use however you want, but there are no incentives to commercially produce more fonts. - We find a better way for people to continue to have to think about whether they're allowed to use a given font instead of focusing more fully on what they want to communicate. It's the role of economics to address problems caused by scarcity. But are fonts scarce? Are they scarcer than the attention required to use them? When do we say, "good job, that's enough fonts" and move on? Or do we really need to reserve a fraction of the global mindshare for font design in perpituity? I'm happy to be convinced of this, it's just that I don't see it from here.

tptacek 5y ago
I think it's revealing that message board people are so quick to extend arguments against intellectual property to typefaces. It's hard to think of something that people "need" less than a proprietary font; there are thousands of free ones, and there is no utility benefit to any of the non-free ones. It's hard to see a motivation for "liberating" them beyond spite.
- danShumway 5y ago
  I think you and GP are in some ways saying the same thing. > But are fonts scarce? Are they scarcer than the attention required to use them? When do we say, "good job, that's enough fonts" and move on? You disagree about the idea of removing IP protections from fonts, but beyond that you seem to agree that Libre font collections may basically be Good Enough(tm) and that there might not be much of a need or justification to waste time thinking about the proprietary/commercial market at all. I do generally disagree with both ideas, I think people are a little too quick to dismiss the creative and functional value of new fonts, and I think that typography as a skill is generally undervalued in technical circles. But that disagreement aside, I didn't read GP's post as an argument that there's a pressing need to liberate fonts, just that to them it's not clear what copyright is even protecting here in the first place, given how little (again, to them) functional value that proprietary fonts provide.

metalliqaz 5y ago

This article makes a strange contradiction. "people visit websites for information they’re interested in, not design and not the font in which text is rendered in" If that's the case, then what's the problem? You can use plenty of attractive fonts already installed on client devices, or something like Google Fonts for free. If the design isn't important, then that's more than enough.

Ensorceled 5y ago
Yes, if it didn't matter, why would I care that some fonts are crazy expensive.

webpdf 5y ago

https://twitter.com/WebPDFpro/status/1427911634387836935 https://twitter.com/WebPDFpro/status/1427911634387836935 Helvetica Now Variable Complete Family Unlimited for only $2,705,353,197,552,556,500.00 That is two quintillion seven hundred five quadrillion three hundred fifty-three trillion one hundred ninety-seven billion five hundred fifty-two million five hundred fifty-six thousand five hundred dollars!!

thayne 5y ago

I've seen licenses where you pay per CPU on the server(s). What does that even mean if you serve the font using something like S3? And if you use a CDN, do you have to pay for the CPUs at the edge too? Unreasonable licensing for web fonts results in companies not buying those fonts.

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fimdomeio 5y ago

One thing that baffles me in the last webfonts i’ve used is that in the install instructions the css has some @import tracking line and an explanation that the font does not work without that line, which is a plain lie. If i already have some troubles understanding charging by page views, trying to force my users to be tracked by them is just crazy.

omnimus 5y ago
I think you overestimate how technical most of these type foundries are. The industry is basically few huge corporations like Monotype, Adobe, Google Fonts and then 100s of tiny independent 1-5 person companies. These are no web engineers and mostly are just somehow trying to figure out how to survive. I wouldn't think there's much malice behind it... more like incompetence. Most of webfonts sales are delivered just as .woff files to be selfhosted. Probably also reason why people use them because Google Fonts exists specifically to track people.

graupel 5y ago

I just purchased $12,000 worth of fonts and it nearly broke me (mentally) in terms of how to do it the right way across web, desktop and app. The system truly is broken in every regard.

Rd6n6 5y ago

All the webfonts I’ve ever seen have a variation of this clause, which I think unintentionally makes them unusable on the web for their stated purposes. Do they think that @font-face prevents downloads? Anybody can just right click in the network tab iirc > The Licensee may use the Licensed Webfont(s) only on the web, for styling Websites, using the @font-face selector in CSS files, subject to the following restrictions: > 1. The Licensee may not link to, nor put online, any version of the font downloadable and installable by any third party

superfamicom 5y ago

I love typography but decided to follow the trend of removing custom fonts from my websites as the value add is actually very, very low. A lot can be achieved with some simple letter spacing and line height, as well as antialiasing correctly. I looked into paying for nice custom typefaces but the cost is too much. I have been using the same open source typeface for programming since I found it many, many years ago. The industry reminds me of music licensing, there are so many free choices that are public domain, but if you have the money you flex and spend it on something custom, even if it is more or less the same as the free option, because that distinction is made by the end users. It reminds me of 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' using public domain music for many of the scenes and the theme, and now I hear that tune in many TV shows.

systemvoltage 5y ago
Please don’t fix fonts with letter spacing and other hacks. Fonts are engineered with specific fitting (even before kerning pairs are added) and this would just make things worse. You can however continue to use open source fonts! There is nothing wrong with that. There are many amazing free fonts out there that compete with commercial alternatives. But to say that Fonts don’t add any value is preposterous.
- superfamicom 5y ago
  I didn't mention fixing anywhere. Having spent a portion of my career as a graphic designer, letter spacing / kerning was used in literally every print piece I ever made, so to suggest they are to be used as provided is preposterous.
  - robocat 5y ago
    You just reminded me of https://type.method.ac/ https://type.method.ac/ where everyone can quickly check their font kerning skills against a standard. Fun for us developers!

pdimitar 5y ago

Calling out for the common folk or small business to pay for the fonts they used is doomed to fail. (Not saying the article does that, just pointing it out.) Calling out to fight insane legal practices is even less likely to ever succeed as well. IMO a good solution to both licensing plus compensating the hard-working people who make fonts would be: 1. Integrate those fonts in the mainstream browsers; 2. Have the browser vendors pay a flat fee to the font creators, annually. I think something like $20_000 per font per year is quite fair and definitely won't even register in the balance sheets of Google, Apple and Mozilla. There's no way this whole thing can be solved by making small customers pay. Even if some do most will not so such a business strategy simply doesn't scale. Even if I make $10_000 a month from a small business of mine I'd still not consider paying something like $500 for a font unless I am sure I am going to use it for 4-5 years. In my eyes it's an insanely high cost for just one tiny part of my online business. But one thing I don't know and would love to learn more about is this: are the professional fonts usually paid per month or only once for a lifetime? If the latter then I guess many smaller business could still bear the cost.

systemvoltage 5y ago
Let’s not bake anymore things in a browser. There are too many typefaces. I don’t want to rely on the browser to integrate a work of art that I created. The way it is, the current situation, allows the typographer to sell directly to consumers and select appropriate license. Whether that’s expensive or too restrictive is besides the point. There is a plethora of cheap fonts. Not only would your idea kill creativity and bring font development to a standstill, it would put too much power in the hands of browsers which are already too powerful.

phkahler 5y ago

I wish web sites would stop using custom fonts. It's a waste of bandwidth.

omnimus 5y ago
Javascript is waste of cpu cycles and bandwidth.

boondaburrah 5y ago

One thing that grinds my gears is that ebook font licensing is somehow separate from pdf font licensing and on a per title basis, despite them being /the same thing/. Similarly, application embed licensing and webfont licensing are separate, which kinda makes sense, until you make a webapp. (In reality though, I believe the spirit of the distinction is whether the user of the app can enter any text and have it appear in that font, but they don't say that.)

tomc1985 5y ago

Honestly the whole idea of creators controlling their IP is fucked. Everywhere, everyone wants to get in on carving out a million monetizable use cases while the rest of us collapse under the weight of an entirely bullshit system of rights enforcement. We should not have to walk on eggshells! Here's an alternative: anything you put out there, isn't yours any more. It belongs to the public. Art, software, music, fonts... it is in the hands of the people. Your role as creator is limited to stewardship.

vmception 5y ago
Only a piece of the solution, you still need the economic incentive, and that incentive shouldn't be just hoping you're popular enough for people to donate to your stewardship. Let me know what you come up with, there are likely some crafty solutions.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  Universal Basic Income could help a lot here. The rise of open-source and volunteer movements shows that a lot of people want to work on what they are passionate about, if only for their jobs and the need to earn money. UBI may not solve this entirely but if it can free people of the need to worry about their economics whilst simultaneously allowing people to do whatever they want, for a lot of folks that is enough. Additionally, I don't really see the issue with selling (NOT licensing) something up-front, if there is a culture of setting pricing to be reasonable and fair instead of the current leave-no-money-on-the-table approach. Those that want to earn above and beyond can still find employment in critical services...banking, healthcare, government, whatever, while those that want to opt out of employment are free to do so on their terms.
  - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
    I like the way CirclesUBI handles it. If you appreciate a craftsman's work you can "trust" them. Trust is a pact to value their UBI tokens as much as you value your own. So you don't have be in the market for a font to support fontmakers (or anything else).

Wistar 5y ago

In 2014, when I was working on post-production for a TV ad, the producer wanted to use a typeface, Typotheque's Tribute Tribunal Std Bold, until he found out that the "broadcast and film" license fee for a single year of on-air use in North America was $17,465.

marstall 5y ago

new to the fonts space, but I really wanted a totally unique look for a new site I'm building and came upon an font foundry called photo-lettering. The story of how itsfonts came to exist and be available on the web is truly cool (and informs this debate a little). Photo-lettering, Inc aka PLINC was a high-end foundry and design firm in New York City beginning in the 1930s that was used as a volume service provider by Madison Avenue (think proofs flying across midtown via courier). Their unique claim to fame was that each individual letter of their font faces existed as a large photographic plate which was then projected onto layouts using a proprietary overhead system. The result satisfied the exacting needs of magazine designers and such in this era. Fast-forward to the present, and the fonts, which are supercool in a 60s 70s way (think warholesque), have been scanned and lovingly converted to webfonts, using various advanced features available in opentype etc. They do use that funny desktop/webfont pricing described by the OP. I'm more than willing to plunk down $125 apiece for the 2 fonts I'm using because of the obvious value this company is offering. The pricing does get into nosebleed territory relatively quickly, but this is a product I feel really good about supporting. For the full PLINC rabbit hole ... https://www.photolettering.com/about/history/drawer_one/ https://www.photolettering.com/about/history/drawer_one/

indymike 5y ago

If I'm honest with myself, when I get mad at font licensing it is because there is a great mismatch between my budget and the font publisher's price list.

ordiel 5y ago

A very simplified comment... Use the freaking font, pay none for it due to how such complexities for it are managed, wait for the font owner to find your site and try to do some legal paperwork against you and then see how all of that legal stuff is just not useful in whichever conuntry you are actually on...

Shorel 5y ago

Ha ha ha ha. I put the New York Times font in my PocketBook eReader. Its name is "FB Web Use Only". I don't care.

mark-r 5y ago

The silver lining in all this is that it has led to the availability of free font licenses. Google Fonts is a fantastic resource.