You are correct that in the 19th and early 20th century, we used to 'pirate' just about everything. Thomas Edison made a fair amount of money doing this with m

You are correct that in the 19th and early 20th century, we used to 'pirate' just about everything. Thomas Edison made a fair amount of money doing this with movies, for example. However, you are incorrect about this particular item. Sure, one can produce a font file that is licensed and distributed with a computer/web browser/whatever and it's pretty easy for a determined large group of users to not pay for more than a single copy of said font. At the very least, a user can take said font rasterize / embed it in a thrilling rendition of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' along with every other letter/symbol the typeface provides entirely legally that all are free to use. More commonly, someone else can re-implement the font that is an (almost?) perfect copy of the original. That's how the computing world got all of those TrueType fonts that were knock-offs of Adobe's Type I fonts and a big part of why Postscript is not really a thing for most users anymore. See https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf "Copyright law does not protect typeface or mere variations of typographical ornamentation or let- tering. A typeface is a set of letters, numbers, or other characters with repeating design elements that is intended to be used in composing text or other combinations of characters, including calligraphy. Generally, typeface, fonts, and lettering are building blocks of expression that are used to create works of authorship. The Office cannot register a claim to copyright in typeface or mere variations of typographic ornamentation or lettering, regardless of whether the typeface is commonly used or unique. There are some very limited cases where the Office may register some types of typeface, typefont, lettering, or calligraphy. For more information, see chapter 900 , section 906.4 of the Compendium. To register copyrightable content, you should describe the surface decoration or other ornamentation and should explain how it is separable from the typeface characters." Notice the 'building blocks of expression'... that's the whole First Amendment bit. IIRC, there was a Supreme Court case about this.