>What's a broke freelance designer to do?

Perhaps a career move?

Paying for fonts won't make you a successful designer.

If you're looking for absolution, you've come to the wrong place. Theft is theft...

>If you're looking for absolution,

Theory B. I have trouble believing any graphic designer would post a message like this, using their real name, location, educational background and web site (profile), forever linking themselves to such behavior, thanks to the power of Google. So perhaps this is an attempt to discredit a competitor or the upstanding design students at Oregon State?

Fonts are tools. Carpenters and mechanics pay for their tools, why shouldn't designers?

Worrying about this is a start. My suggestion is: try to be on the legal side. You can start by licensing the font you are going to use for your present work (normally you can charge your client a little extra so you can pay the fonts or at least a part of it). You don’t need to buy all the family, just the weights you are going to use. If your buy is wise, probably those fonts will be useful for future works, so you can save the extra charge for the time you need to buy again. Repeat the process.

Type design implies a lot of time, maybe years just to develop a single family. It’s fair to compensate to the guy who makes possible your work.

I use them regularly in my designs today.

Stop being a piker and charge the cost of the fonts back to your clients! Do you think a plumber would install a sink and not make you pay for the pipes?

"If you're looking for absolution, you've come to the wrong place. Theft is theft..."

I'm not looking for absolution, I just want to do the right thing. A lot of designers...I dare say ALL students who graduate from design schools...do this regularly. I think it's a universal issue, not some isolated incident.

My work isn't exactly high-profile, and the most high-profile work I've done had fonts that my client already owned and had license to use so I'm not really worried that I've truly trespassed.

I should probably have clarified that the majority of my work has been based out of school, and they own all the font licenses for the fonts on their machines. I assumed that while I was working there, I had free-reign to use them.

Anyway, I'll definitely start charging for font use as part of my user agreement. Thanks for all your feedback.

A lot of designers...I dare say ALL students who graduate from design schools...do this regularly. I think it's a universal issue, not some isolated incident.

Yeah, and everyone on Wall Street was double-dealing, and putting together packages that they knew would fail. We all know how well that turned out...

I think it's a good sign of a developing moral sense that you are aware that you should pay for fonts -- at the very least for the ones you are using.

Most people seem to think it's legal because the 'Web makes it easy to do, and don't spend another second thinking any further.

Most people seem to think it's legal because the 'Web makes it easy to do, and don't spend another second thinking any further.

I don't think the "web" is the issue here. He paid to go to school, they have the fonts (that he uses legally while he is there) and then he graduates. This isn't so cut-and-dry as everyone thinks.

And the "plumber" metaphor works above, but it's hard to draw a metaphor here: it's not a normal circumstance to be paying to work under someone (school) and use their tools.

Fonts are tools.

Tools that can be copied infinitely without using resources will lose their value. It's like inflation: the more money becomes available, the less it is worth.

There is no universal accountability system in place for protecting the intellectual property of type and software designers. They're in the mix with every other type of digital media.

The problem is a tricky one:

A. people who are in college could be required to register the fonts and software on their computer in order to prevent piracy. But...

B. those kind of accountability systems are perceived as a threat to privacy and many would be against it because of "civil rights violations" and a fear of "Big Brother."

I think piracy in this century is a huge issue and no single party is dealing with it fairly. The RIAA is suing the hell out of a few unlucky people, yet the perceived damages they did by sharing music was often blown completely out of proportion.

It's a story of the Big Suits "trampling the rights" of the little guy. It's a paranoid parade of confusion and conflict with no end in sight. Millions get off the hook and a few people are made to pay for their actions. This is clearly the wrong way about it. It is also the only way we've figured out.

When a brilliant type designer slaves away three years to create a typeface that people want to use, they've really created something untouchable and invisible. This is the struggle that type and software designers face when publishing fonts.

As I continue my freelance enterprises, I will gladly start purchasing licenses for the typefaces I use. I simply haven't been able to afford it. I'm not a criminal -- just going through a learning process.

If colleges would offer a font umbrella and allow graduated students to work with their college's licenses legally until they are able to pay for licenses themselves, then we'd have at least a temporary solution. I also think my teachers should have talked about this stuff more. It was only ever mentioned in passing and most students never talked about it. The attitude was "there's nothing we can do to stop it, so why bother?"

I have the dark vision of a one-hundred-post-thread with Ferraris, Audis and Porsches and with masses of little men that sneak through the cables and that ride on electromagnetic waves with all the golden glyphs on their backs and the kerning in their pockets.

It's a story of the Big Suits "trampling the rights" of the little guy

Perhaps in an alternate universe, "owning" tunes and fonts might rank right up there with Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, but not in this one, Junior...

Forget about the fonts you already have installed -- whatever their legal status.
When you get a new project, use it as an opportunity to acquire a new typeface that is just right for the job at hand.
So many fonts, so little time.
You might find yourself falling back on certain faces that always come through for you, in which case, sure, pay to license them.
Myriad Condensed and Scala were those faces for me, when I was art directing back in the '90s. And Helvetica, although I am loth to admit it!

I'll probably cough up the money for a couple emigre fonts as well as Akzidenz-Grotesk and Roswell.

Are the fonts that came installed on my machine licensed for my use commercially?

choose 2-3 fonts, that suits ur design.
Since you are not student anymore, and you getting money from projects.
Start putting on the side a certain percentage % of your profits for fonts
as you said, fonts are good tools, treat them back nicely.
And in notime you will have a good font library.

@all

As I continue my freelance enterprises, I will gladly start purchasing licenses for the typefaces I use. I simply haven't been able to afford it. I'm not a criminal -- just going through a learning process.

This guy reminds me of me and every other aspiring professional musician in the pre-digital era. (That's pre-digital, folks.)
At that time, purchasing the "sheet music" for popular songs was an impossible proposition. Pricing was geared for the amateur whose purchases were few and far between. And, of course, jazz tunes weren't published at all - somebody had to sit down and write out the melodies and chord changes.
The answer was - what was called at the time and probably still is - "fake books". These were black market compilations of tunes written out by professionals for other professionals and music students. (Also, the quality of the fakes were better than what was sold to the public, too. The chord changes (harmonies), especially, tended to be more accurate.)
At the Berklee College of Music, there was one fake book that everybody had and it was an indispensable "textbook" (but, of course, you couldn't buy it in a store) and you carried it with you all the time.
It was ironically titled "The Real Book" as a play on the phrase "fake book" and because of the accuracy I mentioned - to musicians, an inside joke.
Far from harming anyone, it served a great good. I wish I still had my collection of fake books, but they got lost in the shuffle years ago.

I can't imagine how an aspiring designer is supposed to learn to handle typefaces if they don't have a "learning" collection.
That's just my take on ophello's post - I think it's for real. And even if he isn't, his problems are.
Not looking to debate this back and forth. He just reminded me of me.

Rich

The great thing about actually purchasing type rather than just downloading them en masse is that it forces you to curate, which I find an important part of the design process.

You don't need hundreds of typefaces. Typically, you just need one or two that are right for the job at hand.

Rich: I can't imagine how an aspiring designer is supposed to learn to handle typefaces if they don't have a "learning" collection.

In this case, ophello reports that as a student he had access to a large number of fonts, which he then copied to his computer and took with him when he ceased being a student. Presuming -- a big presumption -- that the school had legitimately licensed all those fonts for use by its students, there you have both the learning collection you suggest is necessary and the legitimate learning context in which it is used. If someone failed during his or her time as a student to learn to handle type while having access to such a collection, that is either an individual failing or reflects badly on the school and its curriculum; in either case, it isn't resolved by an individual making copies of all those fonts and continuing to work with them after he or she has ceased to be a student at that institution.

Ophello, the first thing for you to do, if you genuinely want to do the right thing, is to delete from your system any font for which you do not have a license that permits it to be installed on your system. You will still have a lot of fonts left: fonts that came with your system, fonts that came bundled with software, plus any fonts that you have licensed. In fact, you'll still have enough fonts to constitute something like Rich's ‘learning collection’ if that is what you want or need. Some of these fonts will be appropriate for some jobs, and for other jobs you can build the price of new font licenses into your design fee.

"Theory B. I have trouble believing any graphic designer would post a message…"

Agreed. Sounds like an angry friend, troll or someone trying generate dialogue about the cost of fonts to simply monitor the conversation that follows. That, or some sort of bizarre attempt at "social media networking."

Fail.

I wouldn't say delete them. What's the point? Just don't use them/publish your works using them.

I'd say keep them, as a way to test purchasing options in the future. There's no harm in having them for your own experimental use, especially if in an upcoming project you decide one is necessary for the design. You can easily test it out and then decide if you want to purchase your own copy.

Do college design classes even teach about font licensing? (I graduated in the days before desktop publishing, so it wasn't an issue in those days.)

In my experiences, colleges don't really teach about "fonts" (as a whole)... they leave that up to you, which I prefer. Especially not licensing. This definitely helps separate the ones there for a degree and the ones there for passion/actual interest. In my Senior year, there were people who had been there for 4 years with me, but still had no idea of the difference between Opentype and Truetype or who Herb Lubalin was. It would be nice if they delved into licensing, however.

Classes can only cover so much, you know? There is a type design course as well, but it's only offered to graduates. I wanted to take that course, but not enough people (less than 5... I don't understand it) signed up, so it was dropped. Guess I'm stuck to training myself again.

My college taught a bit about licensing- and they were very strict about not allowing us to copy fonts from their computers.

Agreed. Sounds like an angry friend, troll or someone trying generate dialogue about the cost of fonts to simply monitor the conversation that follows. That, or some sort of bizarre attempt at "social media networking."

OR...I'm a real person and everything I've said is true. Why is that so hard to believe?

I'm getting kind of annoyed with the animosity in here. I didn't kill your cat. I just have fonts on my system from college, a few of which have been used and the vast majority of which are simply rotting on my hard drive.

I think I've made it clear that it is my intention to start purchasing fonts regularly.

I'm getting kind of annoyed with the animosity in here. I didn't kill your cat. I just have fonts on my system from college (99% of which have never been used in any of my work, BTW. They're just there.)

Well, what exactly did you expect? A number of members of this forum, myself included, derive their sole source of income from the sale of their fonts. Your lame attempt to excuse your behavior with the bromide "everybody does it" doesn't hold water; everybody did it on Wall Street, and it cost the American taxpayers the better part of a trillion dollars to clean up the mess. I am willing to bet that you wouldn't attempt to pilfer a music CD from an actual brick-and-mortar store, if only because getting caught would have unpleasant consequences. What in the world makes you--and, evidently, every other member of your generation--think that theft of "non-tangible" items is any different? The bottom line is the same: the people who put out the effort to create the digital goods you enjoy don't get paid for those efforts, plain and simple...

Steve: I wouldn't say delete them. What's the point? Just don't use them/publish your works using them. I'd say keep them, as a way to test purchasing options in the future. There's no harm in having them for your own experimental use, especially if in an upcoming project you decide one is necessary for the design. You can easily test it out and then decide if you want to purchase your own copy.

The original post indicate that ‘ophello’ wants to ‘do the right thing’. Unless a license for the fonts specifically permits their installation for test purposes as you suggest, any installation of this fonts on a system is unlicensed. Believing that one is not doing any harm is not the same as doing the right thing.

Your lame attempt to excuse your behavior with the bromide "everybody does it" doesn't hold water

At no point did I ever attempt to "excuse myself" from anything. I was stating a fact without qualifiers: everyone pirates. Everyone. It can't be stopped and will never be stopped unless the internet gestapo puts a strangle-hold on every computer connected to the internet – which is a solution that I dare say even you would be violently opposed to. The consequences of piracy are not black and white, as you'd like them to be.

By the way...the argument that pirating music is "hurting musicians" has been debunked repeatedly by people who know a lot more about this stuff than I do. The music industry is doing just fine. Their CD sales are slumping because it makes no sense to burn the fuel to create the plastic and spin the data onto them and print them and package them and ship them and label them and sell them in a store when one mouse click does it all in the blink of an eye. It's a stupid waste of resources to print physical CDs.

Auto-Tune EFX is a piece of pitch-correction software (which I own, BTW) that doesn't work unless you have a special USB dongle with licenses on it connected to your computer. That seems like a solution to me.

Here's a utopian idea. Tell me if you think this would work:

Font designers are all paid in full by one single type foundry. If you spend 9 months creating a typeface, you are paid for 9 months of work. If you're starting out, you pay the font foundry to advertise it for you and see if it becomes popular or useful. The more often your font is used, the more shares of the company you get.

The foundry makes money from membership fees, advertising on their website, holding design conferences and type workshops, and licensing their software security protocols to design companies like Adobe who agree to make their software work exclusively with the foundry.

Users pay a monthly fee and get access to any font they want for as long as they want. The more they pay, the more fonts they have access to. The fonts can only be used by purchasing a special USB dongle that activates their use on the computer. They aren't actually stored on the computer but exist entirely on the internet and cannot be downloaded or pirated.

Problem solved?

>The music industry is doing just fine.

You lost me there.

I'll repeat myself: the music industry, aside from CD sales, is doing just fine. True fact.

>>I'll repeat myself: the music industry, aside from CD sales, is doing just fine. True fact.<<

Should I send you the list of musicians I know that can't survive on the money they make as musicians? Or should I just point you to the sites where you can download their music without them seeing a dime for it?

Do your musician friends utilize the internet to promote themselves? Twitter? Facebook groups? Do they perform regularly? Sell merchandise?

When I say "music industry," I'm referring to the RIAA and the Big 5. Musicians themselves have a lot to learn about making it in this economy. Trent Reznor is a good source of info on making money as a musician.

And if they can't "survive as musicians," is that necessarily the fault of piracy? It's easy to blame piracy but you can't just connect the dots directly.

Most musicians starting out giving their music for free. It's a new paradigm, and it sneaked up on us fast.

Is it a Duck
Behind this treachery?
This Thievery?
Nay, I say.
'Tis a Beaver.

What does music have to do with this? Fonts are professional tools, not consumer media. Ophello has identified himself as a graphic design professional, i.e. someone who uses fonts to add value to his work and who makes money from that activity. There is no parallel between professional tools and consumer media, whether one is talking about physical form or digital.

>'Tis a Beaver.

Perhaps its a case of a Beaver catching Duck font envy...

http://www.kval.com/sports/local/48921497.html

> It's easy to blame [music] piracy but you can't just
> connect the dots directly...

Oh dear... I started out sympathetic to you, Ophello — you were looking for advice on how to start making things right -- but now you seem to be veering in the general direction of defending piracy, or at least implying that it doesn't do much harm.

Some of the folks here make their living selling fonts, so piracy is going to be a touchy subject, to put it mildly. As the ship captain said in Master & Commander, "You've come to the wrong shop for anarchy."

I liked Nick Shinn's advice -- just use your upcoming projects as opportunities to gradually build a nice collection of legal-obtained fonts.

If you read all my posts, you'd see my line of thinking.

What does music have to do with this?

A lot, actually. Name this:

1. A form of digital information that people work hard producing?
2. Sold through "official" outlets?
3. Millions get away with pirating it?
4. A few unlucky pirates are fined disproportionately to make up for lost revenue?

Fonts and music both fit into these categories. While I admit that they aren't the same thing, the discussion became centered around piracy in general, and that's why I brought it up.

...you seem to be veering in the general direction of defending piracy, or at least implying that it doesn't do much harm.

You miss my point, again. I am not defending piracy. I am saying there is nothing anyone can do about it. There's a difference.

As for music: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/industry_news/is_piracy_really_killi...

War on Piracy is like the War on Drugs or the War on Terrorism - it will never end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up863eQKGUI

And the sequel...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUCyvw4w_yk

Oh never mind.

mmm, i miss something, despite whatever piracy,
when you choose a song, band to accompany
your design, if thats for example an AD, tv spot or
what so ever, try do that without a proper license.
Of course, you can obtain it in seconds from pirate
websites, but use it commercial its a total
different story. If you want to compare industries,
compare their usage, not so general.
I dont believe noone will give a crap if you print in
a pirate font, a note to the back of your sister "kick me" or "cut my hair"
but if u gonna get money out of it, well thats a different story.

>Please don't sue me!

Okay. I'll make sure you are on our do-not-sue list.

>War on Piracy is like the War on Drugs or the War on Terrorism - it will never end.

Well, the wars on drugs and terrorism most assuredly end for individuals.

Cheers!

> You miss my point, again. I am not defending piracy.

Ophello, when you use phrases like "internet gestapo", and when you imply that piracy doesn't really hurt the content creators all that much, it's gonna create that impression.

It's fun to make music industry analogies with fonts, believe me, I try. There are more differences than similarities between digital music and digital fonts.

Similarities:

Fonts and music can be easily downloaded, distributed and shared.
Fonts and music are subject to fashion. Some songs/fonts are classics, some are not and diminish in value until they're eventually considered ironically cool.

Differences:

Fonts are tools for professional designers to use in their businesses while music is usually for personal use. When someone uses a font, they're likely "broadcasting" it in some way: using it on a website, a poster, and album cover . . . the font gets seen by many people. That can have the negative effect of overexposure. A novel display font doesn't seem as novel when it's seen by the public. Music normally isn't broadcast by illegal downloaders. While illegally downloading music can reduce the number of potential sales, listening to it doesn't actually reduce the perceived value of the music. I can listen to a pirated song 1000 times and it doesn't affect the perceived value of the song to other people. Unlike music, the fashion cycle of fonts is based less on trends and more based on public exposure of individual fonts.

So let me get this straight...not a one of you responders have done what the original poster has done to find out about a typeface or its inner workings or used an unlicensed font for an overly insistent client or that first design job to get you on your feet?

Interesting...

There's are as many similarities as there are differences when comparing different types digital IP infringement (or physical theft, for that matter).

The only sure thing is that, on Typophile, you're naturally going to come up against a majority that don't like it.

Whether in music or fonts, the idea that piracy doesn't hurt the producers in any significant way I think has nothing to do with ethics, law, or reality. It is just a convenient self-deception by those who want to pirate and not feel feel too badly about it.

Don't get me started on bundling, Bill :-)

I have the dark vision of a one-hundred-post-thread …

Halftime.

Hello, ophello-

My suggestion is that you keep your ill-gotten fonts, but every time you make a design using any those fonts you make sure your client buys an appropriate licence for that font.

I know that in Finland just about every student copies all the fonts from their school, so that is not unique. Just don't abuse them, but let them work for you.

Or else I'll come and kneecap you: P, Vancouver, Washinton, USA.

@tomi

Whoa. I didn't know you were so tough. Why don't we just send somebody to cap his dumb ass right now? On general principles? :-)

@william berkson
Uh, I still haven't seen any newspapers charging for content. Will Japanese food work for you in LA? I can taste it already.
I stopped using the term piracy awhile ago. It just stopped having a useful meaning to me. Counter productive. Non-illuminating. And copying is not theft, no matter how you want to parse words. I'm not saying it's OK or not OK. Just that copying is not theft. Two different things. "Nonrivalrous". Now, copying might be a crime that's punishable under certain circumstances, but it isn't theft. Ever.

Even if you view information as a life-form, which some people do, copying isn't kidnapping, either.

One difference between music and fonts - and I guess it applies to all code - is that with music, the underlying structure isn't masked in any way. What you hear is all there is. It's laid out. Same with a book. You can build on what you've heard or read. But with code, unless you can get to the source, you can't build on it.
And that presents a big problem as our reliance on digital tech grows, and grows, and grows.
I don't know what to do about it - but I know a situation that's ripe for abuse when I see one.

ciao,

rich

Richard-

I do not think there is any P living in Vancouver, Washington, USA. Or any Vancouver in Washington, USA.

OK, I just found out that there is a Vancouver right next to Portland. But try to find a P to kneecap there…

Ophello: Fonts and music both fit into these categories. While I admit that they aren't the same thing, the discussion became centered around piracy in general, and that's why I brought it up.

Fonts and music both fit into the categories of

5. Things I think about at least once every day.
6. Things that sometimes make me happy and sometimes make me sad.
7. A lot of other categories.

So what? Fonts are professional tools from which you, as a design professional, derive added value that contributes to your income, and music is a consumable. If you were a music professional, in some way deriving value from downloaded music that contributed to your income, then it would make sense to talk about music in the way in which we need to talk about fonts. But it makes no sense to talk about fonts in the way in which you want to talk about music, which is irrelevant to your profession.

Discussions about font piracy do tend to drift into talk about general piracy, but that's because people like you make sloppy analogies and overlook significant differences.

>Uh, I still haven't seen any newspapers charging for content.

They have for hundreds of years, it's called a subscription. And as to on line, the Wall Street Journal has, and the others are going to charge soon, or there are going to be few newspapers left.

John, a bunch of people just don't believe in intellectual property rights, and that's where music, fonts and other software are in the same boat.

I think that's where these discussions usually end up pretty quickly, as this one has.

You miss my point, again. I am not defending piracy. I am saying there is nothing anyone can do about it. There's a difference.

So, you're saying because there is nothing anyone can do about it, and in an earlier post, "everyone does it" that it is ok to do it? I mean, you have already said that you have done it and yet you say you want to do the right thing and yet you STILL have these fonts on your system.

No matter how you look at it, these are the facts: You need a license to use the fonts you took from your college. You don't have said licence therefore you cannot legally use them. So the 'right' thing to do is delete them.

Now if you don't want to delete them that is your choice, I certainly wouldn't judge you for it but try to sort out what it is you're actually talking about, because I don't think you know what the hell you're talking about.

The right thing to do is clear. Either do it or don't do it instead of starting pointless arguments that you have created yourself.

>I do not think there is any P living in Vancouver, Washington, USA.

P updated his profile to deliete his full name, which made it easy to locate his web site, client list etc., if you're interested in checking out his portfolio feel free to contact me off-list, but only if you swear on a stack of type specimens that there will be no violence.

P updated his profile to deliete his full name, which made it easy to locate his web site, client list etc.

Do you blame me for deleting that? Some of you are making joking threats about busting in my kneecaps. You'd do the same. What I really DON'T need is financial ruin because some errant person on Typophile thinks I deserve it.

I'm trying to find work in Portland. I'm staying with my dad in Vancouver. I've got a client in NYC who's paying me for the fonts I've used in their design (these are new developments, btw. I can use a few of these fonts legally now).

if you're interested in checking out his portfolio feel free to contact me off-list, but only if you swear on a stack of type specimens that there will be no violence.

Don't bother, here it is:
http://www.hennesseydesign.com/

The work I've done (now that I've gone through to take a good look) was all done either:
1. as an intern in a design firm
2. in college using fonts on their computers

I used an emigre font on my website which I created in an interactive design class at OSU. I think that's probably legit as far as legal use is concerned.

I use them regularly in my designs today.

As for my comment in the first post, I took some time today to look at the work I've done since I left school (in reality, I didn't start getting projects until December of last year). I used Trajan, but that comes on every mac. I used "alte haus grotesk" for my friends music page, but that's a free font. I used Roswell, but that font license is owned by my client in Seattle (so she says...but I wonder if that since SHE has the font that doesn't mean that *I* can use it...).

In conclusion, I think I was a little premature in suggesting that I've been rampantly using my ill-gotten fonts. So let's all ease off my back, pretty please, and thanks.

>Do you blame me for deleting that?

Not at all. And you deserve respect for re-identifying yourself. Sincere best wishes for the future.

Now if you don't want to delete them that is your choice, I certainly wouldn't judge you for it but try to sort out what it is you're actually talking about, because I don't think you know what the hell you're talking about.

I know exactly what I'm talking about. I don't always take the time to type out every thought or plan for every contingency. But I know exactly what I say and mean.

At no point (check my posts...I did.) did I ever say "Font piracy is great and doesn't hurt anyone." (I may have said that about the Music Industry, but that's not what Typophile users seem interested in, apparently. I drew a parallel between font piracy and music piracy and a few of you think I missed the point. Well, I didn't. Conversations tend to drift in message forums...don't read too much into it.)

Here's the story: I had to work from my dorm. I didn't feel like walking a mile to the computer lab to work. Everyone there had the lazy eye and it's a creepy place to be between the hours of 10pm and 4am. To avoid these unpleasant visits and to be able to work on my design projects from home, I copied the fonts to my computer as a convenience. EVERYONE DID THIS. (THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT'S "RIGHT"). That's all that I mean by "everyone did this." Everyone did it. It was the culture, the unspoken rule. "Well of COURSE you copy the fonts, why wouldn't you?" There was an entire server dedicated to fonts that all design students could access. No professor ever said the words "Do not copy those fonts." There was no Culture of Accountability (a made-up buzz phrase that really should be used more often).

It is really that hard to understand my position? What would you have done differently? I continually try to explain what happened, what my moral stance on it is, what I think I want to do differently...I'm done arguing and explaining. It's pointless. I've made my experiences and intentions perfectly clear.

"You don't have said licence therefore you cannot legally use them. So the 'right' thing to do is delete them."

To clarify, the 'legal' thing is is to delete them.

"The right thing to do is clear."

To an individual it is. But everyone has a different POV as to what is 'right' so hence these mega-threads sprout up.

@ophello

I always read this topic, but I didn't have time of answering your message:

War on Piracy is like the War on Drugs or the War on Terrorism - it will never end.

I disagree totally with you. First I explain the difference among piracy, drugs and terrorism and after I'm going to explain why the pirates steal the fonts.

Piracy aren't related with the drugs and the terrorism. Drugs are related with the traffic, but the traffic isn't related with the piracy because the drugs are illegal, but not prate, the words 'illegal' and "pirate" are different words. Illegal is criminal and piracte is copy or clone. Terrorism is related with religious and politic fanaticism, extremism and radicalisms. The religious or politic fanatics, extremists and radicalists aren't pirate because they don't steal, they just kill, therefore, they're only terrorists. Pirate aren't terrorist because they don't use the airplanes to beat the World Trade Center, don't use the boms to burn out the places for killing the people.

Pirate just attack and kill the people and steal the tings. Pirates are those who love STEALING and WISHING the excellent, expensive and bright things. At the film "Pirate of the Caribbean Islands", the piraes attacked the city, killed the people and stole many things, including that woman. What did they want to STEAL and WISH? In the end, they WISHED the real life, then they stole it. In the second parte, the pirates want to WISH and STEAL the heart for living eternally and at the fairytake, they want to WISH and STEAL the golds and the money hidden in thetrunk.

Why do the pirates steal the fonts?

Because they WISH the excellent, most expensive and bright fonts, therefore, they hack and steal them. But why? Because the fonts can be bought only with the credit card, as Visa, Mastercard, etc. Therefore, the pirates want to buy the fonts with the money, the won national currencies or with the "payment coupcon", but the fonts eletronic shops don't accept them, they want only the dollar, euro or pound and the credit cards, then they're furious, gang for attacking, hacking and stealing the fonts as if the pirates of the fairytake gangged for attacking and destroying the another ship with the England flag. The pirates hate the fonts shops and the type designers as if the pirates hated the English people. Why do they hate them? Because the fonts shops and tye designers are greed, but the type designers aren't conscient of that. They don't recognise their mistakes, as absence of responsibility. The type designers aren't conscient of that the clients buy the fonts or download the free original fonts without reading the EULA INfo notepad or PDF for using them unintended for the commercial use because they just ignore them, or because they don't understand or speak English and don't know what EULA is. The type designers forgot of writting the name's notepad "PLEASE READ THE RULES" in the place of "FONT INFO", and forget of translating the notepads into other languges for the clients to understand the notepads in another languages and after they'll obey the rules of EULA.

Type deisgners may be conscient of all that. Type designers must warn the fonts shops that they tell the clients before of buying the fonts or downbloading the free original fonts, if the font wished is or not for commercial use, they must ask the fonts shops to translate the fonts EULA rules into other languages. They must put a phrase "PLEASE READ THE FONT RULES BEFORE BUYING OR DOWNLOADING THE FREE FONT" on their own site in several languages and the client will understand the rules and obey the rules. They must add many international currencies for that teh client be alble to buy.

> http://www.hennesseydesign.com/

You've done some nice work!

Ophello-

Do not think I'm coming from Finland to Washington state to do in your kneecaps. I do wish that you pay for those fonts you swiped from your college, and – at least – make your clients buy the licence for using them.

I used an emigre font on my website which I created in an interactive design class at OSU. I think that's probably legit as far as legal use is concerned.

(Usual disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not trying to offer legal advice, just passing along my understanding of this area.)

Are you saying:

1) You created a font from scratch and licensed it to Emigre?
2) You created a font from scratch in imitation of an Emigre font?
3) You took an existing Emigre font file and modified it?

The first case is certainly legal. The second case seems to be often legal in the US, though it can depend on the details, and whether the original typeface had a design patent. The third case seems to rarely be legal, although again the details could matter.

I used Trajan, but that comes on every mac.

Actually, it doesn't. It is however bundled with many versions of Adobe Creative Suite (and many member applications of the suite), so if you have a license for that, you're probably clear.

Cheers,

T

@Thomas: I guess ophello is saying that he created his website using an Emigre font.

I didn't modify the font in any way. I'm not a font creator.

That font was installed legally on the computer I used at OSU. The website was an assignment and I used the font to create my navigation and headline. Everyone else in that class used creative typefaces. The teacher made no mention about the legal use of typefaces. Hence, I didn't think twice about it.

He was referring to his website when he said "which I created..."; not the font.

This takes the cake. At the bottom of the website comes the disclaimer:

All images and work contained herein © 2009 by [name redacted].
Do not distribute any of the images contained here without my express permission.

Gotta laugh at that.

Listen, buy the fonts you use. Bill them to your clients. Fonts just aren't as expensive as you think they are. I started buying fonts my last year of school with some extra cash from freelance work, and then I started charging clients for fonts when I wanted them on their jobs. It works. Before you know it, you'll have a stable of thirty or forty 'base' fonts you can't live without and you have legally added them to your collection.

@ ebspoony

Allow me to reiterate for the umpteenth time:

The work on my site was created:
1. while I was interning in a design firm using their fonts legally
2. in college using fonts on their computers legally
3. with a font license that my client owns legally

Perhaps you should brush up on what constitutes legal use of a font. While I am not allowed to copyright an entire font, I am allowed to copyright work that they are used in, provided I own the license. Given facts 1-3 above, I am clearly allowed to copyright my work.

You make a joke at my expense without fully understanding the situation.

Actually I understand it quite well; you're not understanding the irony which I point to. You don't want anyone stealing

your

work, but you search for justification in stealing others'. That's all.

I don't think I am searching for a justification at all. Maybe you should re-read my posts and stop putting words in my mouth?

I understand that work created while you're an employee belongs to the company? Generally speaking at least, unless you were working under a specific arrangement which stated otherwise.

I'm not sure if you're 'clearly allowed' to claim copyright to work created at OSU, especially if you used OSU's 'institutional resources' (such as fonts) to develop that work.

Though OSU does refer only to employees/faculty, not students, in an FAQ:

Who has the right to copyright material?
Generally, the individual creating the materials has the right to copyright them. However, OSU employees are required as a condition of employment to assign intellectual property they develop (unless unrelated to their work assigned or created without using OSU facilities) to OUS. These materials should be copyrighted in the name of OSU, unless OSU has granted waivers or releases of copyright. *

Source: http://printmail.oregonstate.edu/frequently-asked-questions

I was an employee of OSU for the majority of my time there.

So I'm not allowed to copyright anything I did while I was there, huh? I'll look into getting them to grant me a waiver.

I wouldn't bother. I can pretty much guarantee they will not sue. What reason would they have to do so?

>I was an employee of OSU for the majority of my time there.

Like you were on the football team? ;)

Cheers!

A band of ignorants! I'm amazed how they don't want to hear my counsels!

>Like you were on the football team? ;)

I think being "employed" by the football team would violate NCAA rules.

sii, are you speaking with me or with ophello?

@ dberlow

I worked for the student government and did work for the health sciences college. So, yes. I was also a paid employee.

@ steve.acres

That's how I feel about it.

You know, I'm not the only designer out of OSU with copyright statements on their website. I think this is an unresolved issue and I doubt that OSU is even aware of it.

I think OSU expects students to put a copyright on their own work... it's the responsible thing to do. If I use a PANTONE color to print with, I still copyright the work as mine, even though they have the copyright to that color mix, etc.

Ah, sorry for any misunderstanding. Ophello's post wording had been ambiguous, and I thought it was the font he was saying he'd created (since, after all, we're talking about font IP here). Of course it makes more sense as referring to the web site.

@william berkson

Oh, come on, man! The Wall Street Journal was charging before you made your offer.
You're not gonna welch on me now, are you?

>And as to on line, the Wall Street Journal has, and the others are going to charge
>soon, or there are going to be few newspapers left.

Consumer Reports charges a subscription for their online edition, too. They are the exceptions that prove the rule. WSJ is required reading, daily, for a very well-heeled readership that can more than afford to pay. More importantly, it's a professional obligation for every and any trader on Wall Street. Not reading it can cost them and their clients incalculably.
It is very much a trade publication. Yes, it doubles as a general circulation paper, but thems not who's payin'.

In contrast, I don't need to read Maureen Dowd in the morning to function.

More typical is what happened to the Long Island, New York newspaper, Newsday:
"After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday's Web Site"
http://www.observer.com/2010/media/after-three-months-only-35-subscripti...
A complete fiasco. Pitiful. And I lived on Long Island for a long, long time and it's a good paper.
Yes, there won't be any newspapers left. I doubt if the NYTimes has five years more of print editions left.
But there will still be reliable sites to get news. There will still be astute reportage.
It will, however, be more expensive to wrap fish.
Do you like Sushi? (It can be prepared Kosher, you know.)

rich

@ophello

>Do you blame me for deleting that? Some of you are making joking threats about busting
>in my kneecaps.

Ophello, I assure you this was hyperbole of the kind one oftens finds on this forum.
Just playful joking. As Tony Soprano would put it, we're just "breakin' your balls".

Regards,

rich

@ophello

You stole something from us.

You stole . . . . our hearts. Welcome to our sexy club. Now calm down, new guy.

Richard, I don't have time to chase it down, but there was in the news about a month ago that a bunch of newspapers are planning to start charging in the fall. There are also different ways to charge. Eg. Yahoo pays AP to carry its stories.

I'm not going to be in LA for TypeCon this year, alas.

@william berkson

Okay. We'll run into each somewhere along the line I'm sure and let's see what happens in the fall. If that's the newspaper's plans, I'm mighty curious to see....

rich

Here's on the NY Times announcement that it will charge:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/business/media/21times.html

Here's about British newspapers doing the same:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/03/26/britain.newspapers.web.charge/ind...

Here's about Rupert Murdoch starting to charge this summer:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/06/rupert-murdoch-website-charges

Of course, whether this will actually happen and when I don't know. But I think it's inevitable that if ads alone can't support news on the web, then there will also be subscription charges.

Ophello - I'll start by giving a simple piece of advice: Remember you are fresh out of school and debating with a community that makes its living in type design and typography and has been for decades. You should be learning from these people, and taking their words seriously - not trying to prove them wrong with every statement. They will not let it go so easily :)

A lot of designers...I dare say ALL students who graduate from design schools...do this regularly.

I agree with you in part, that many students use unlicensed fonts while they are in school. I believe it has a lot to do with lack of funds but *mostly* because students are not being educated by their teachers about how to properly obtain and use fonts. This knowledge is critical for students who are attending a design school and planning a career as a visual designer.

I also have a very hard time believing that a computer lab at a huge state university had legal licenses for all the computers. But what do I know ….

To say that "ALL" students use fonts illegally, and regularly after graduation is a gross generalization. What you know of design school you learned from your experience at OSU, a school that doesn't have a properly specialized program for visual designers or typography (correct me if I'm wrong - I hope this isn't taken as an insult to your education, not intended at all), so I don't think you can speak for everyone around the globe who learned things very differently. Many members of this community (including myself) graduated from design school with a solid understanding of our industry (visual design), and an understanding of how utilizing fonts and supporting other designers (type designers) is essential to our business and building a solid reputation as a design professional.

My advice to your original query: Keep the fonts for experimentation, to learn and to play, but don't use them in anything that is public-facing, unless you go directly to your local font retailer and/or foundry and purchase a legal license.

@ Zara Evens

Thank you sincerely for the thoughtful reply. I am glad that I was able to run into your site and your diligent users before getting balls-deep into a font licensing crisis.

"…a school that doesn't have a properly specialized program for visual designers or typography"

My school was in no way representative of all design schools -- I really don't know what goes on in other schools. I personally think that OSU design students should be more connected with the Font World.

I think we did have a properly specialized program for visual designers. I went through that program.

"I also have a very hard time believing that a computer lab at a huge state university had legal licenses for all the computers."

I should clarify: all design students had (and probably still have) access to a server with a folder that contains many, many fonts. The fact that we had that kind of access made any computer suddenly able to utilize those fonts. It was a convenience that I hope you understand the need for.

I don't see this as an excuse but as an explanation.

It's not really a "club."

I wouldn't say you should fear them, but "they" are the type designers who create the typefaces you're [we're] using, thus (in my opinion), many of them do deserve at least respect.

There's no way to delete a post once it's been started. I blame the creators. Hmmm? Creators?

We, at Typophile, never delete content unless it contains significantly offensive language irrelevant to design and typography or presents serious legal issues for people in our community, or even us.

The removal of posts or threads poses issues with archiving, therefore we made the conscious decision to not allow deletion by users.

-Creators

@william berkson

Look, it all boils down to the dollars. If they try it, and they pick up more dollars from subscriber money than they lose in ad dollars because of less eyeballs, they'll stick with it. If not, they'll regress. As they did when they tried their "premium" program and charged for access to the op-ed pieces and such. Unless they want to explain to the shareholders why they cut off their nose to spite their face.

Back then, BTW, I paid, and subsequently got a refund when they discontinued the program.

But the situation, for me, at least, has changed. I wouldn't pay today. There's so much stuff to read, my morning ritual with the NYTimes is no more. It's an occasional thing now.