Alerts

*MyFonts, Fonts, FontHaus, etc. and other fonts shop seem to be safer, but really aren't safe, because they have been hacked by the pirates for stealing the fonts, or when the pirates bought the fonts from these shops, but they mistook the shops because they didn't pay for them. Or maybe the pirates invented the false credit cards for buying the fonts at these shops.

*The pirate Helvetica, Calibri and Helvetica Neue have been downloaded by the 130,000 people without knowing that these are paid.

People don't steal fonts because they hate type designers and font shops. They steal them because they just don't want to pay. People don't steal music from bands that they don't like. It works the same way. They steal music they want to listen too because it's good, and they steal fonts they want to use because they're good because they don't want to pay.

I don't care about piracy except when pay fonts are presented as free on free font sites. But I am concerned about making the rules easier to understand for people who aren't as familiar with English.

A EULA is a legal contract. You can translate it, but it's difficult. I've done mine in Japanese but at the bottom it indicates that for legal purposes, you have to abide by the English version. Apart from the EULA, it would be smart to provide simplified rules.

As Kevin suggested, these rules should be internationally understood. Perhaps it could be done with pictures like an Ikea catalog. I think it would be best put them in a jpg, not a PDF. That way they show up as a thumbnail on most operating systems and people will be more likely to be curious and open it.

As for the payment problem, what I think we really need is more font distributors in non-English speaking countries. It's not just a matter of taking payment internationally. A font distributor needs to be able to talk with customers. Buying fonts from an English-only distributor leaves the customer with no place to go when things go wrong.

@typodermic

As Kevin suggested, these rules should be internationally understood. Perhaps it could be done with pictures like an Ikea catalog. I think it would be best put them in a jpg, not a PDF. That way they show up as a thumbnail on most operating systems and people will be more likely to be curious and open it.

@typodermic

As Kevin suggested, these rules should be internationally understood. Perhaps it could be done with pictures like an Ikea catalog. I think it would be best put them in a jpg, not a PDF. That way they show up as a thumbnail on most operating systems and people will be more likely to be curious and open it.

I agree with you all, the clients must see the EULA rules in the image JPG before of downloading the free and original or the paid fonts.

@Andrevv
Yes, yes, but I'm going to tell you. At an another forum, the member asked for the font to somebody, someone gave her the font's download link, but by luck, the member of the same forum, who was a type designer, alerted her that, that font wasn't free or original, was pirate, telling her that to use it pirately for commercial use was crime, he suggested her to buy it safely at Fonts.com shop and she accepted his counsels.

And I have a colleague which is a grpahic designer who illustrates the images of humor and joking at his blog. I recognized the font that he was using for his blog. It was "House Gothic Condensed 3". I knew he didn't buy it from FontBros.com but downloaded from another site without knowing that it was pirate and wasn't free.

What a pity that nobody is interested in my topic. :-(

I don't think you need to force font users to read the rules but at least make them available and noticeable. I think you'll find that most type designers aren't interested in having their rules understood by non-English speakers . . . that might be why this subject isn't of much interest to them. I'm definitely interested. I don't know if I have the skills to come up with symbols for font rules that can be globally understood but I might give it a try. I wonder if this has been done before.

If these folks work professionally in the graphic arts, then my gut reaction is that they aren't naive or ignorant...they're just feigning it to self-justify their own use of the unlicensed faces.

I don't think renaming the EULA file or turning it into a JPG will really accomplish anything...especially if the faces are obtained outside the proper channel to begin with (where this info would often be stripped anyways).

@aluminium

If these folks work professionally in the graphic arts, then my gut reaction is that they aren't naive or ignorant...they're just feigning it to self-justify their own use of the unlicensed faces.

Are you speaking of the pirates or type deisgners?

Icons, for common EULA elements? MIght be harder than you think --

These are supposed to be "Thou should not charge" (for free fonts) and "Thou shalt not modify":

@kevintheophile

I have to admit that I'm maybe not entirely following your argument, but it sounded like you are trying to advocate more obvious/more bilingual/more simplified EULAs.

Which is fine.

But I don't think that will do anything to reduce piracy since folks in this industry should already be aware IP issues and illicit font files likely would have that info stripped anyways.

@Theunis

Your idea is bright. But it must be so. We need to harder with the designers, the graphic designers and those who want to download the free or paid fonts by greediness and egoism because they don't want to pay you.

@alluminium, but of course that we'll reduce it. The ones resolutions of this problem are that we must visit the free fonts sites, find and recognize [your] fonts [that belong to you; to your friends, your colleagues, to your foundry, to the foundries that you know], print the site and the site's direct address, bring them and report/denonce them or the site to the [Federal/Civil] Police Station of your city. By chance you prefer to make an anonymous report/denonce to the police station by the internet, just visit:

You can visit for reporting the piracy:
1) https://reporting.bsa.org/usa/home.aspx (you can change the country if you want; click in "United States" to change the country)
2) https://www.riaa.com/reportpiracy.php

Australia: http://www.afp.gov.au/contact.aspx (if you're Australian or not, if you find the Australian pirate fonts sites)

Brazil: http://www.dpf.gov.br/ (if you're Brazilian or not, if you find Brazilian pirate fonts free sites, in the case you're not Brazilian, send an e-mial: crime.internet@dpf.gov.br and you can write in English.

For the Americans (not being America, you can report the pirate free fonts sites, being American or not):
1) https://www.tipsubmit.com/WebTips.aspx?AgencyID=365
2) http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/police/e-report/

Not only the pirate fonts sites, but there're also the pirate fonts at the sites of 4Shared, MegaUpload, EasyShare, Plunder, Torrent, etc.

One reason I decided not to give my fonts away is to keep anyone from getting the idea that I don’t care what they do with my work.

@James Puckett:
One reason I decided not to give my fonts away is to keep anyone from getting the idea that I don’t care what they do with my work.

Did you mean you decided not to give your fonts to any fonts shop sites?

> report/denonce [pirates] to the police station

In the U.S., cases of trademark/copyright infringement are generally handled via civil lawsuits, not through the police.

In other words, you hire a lawyer and sue the offender.

James, must we report to the civil court or to the police?

> must we report to the civil court or to the police?

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm certainly not an expert, but I think in most cases you simply inform the offender that they are in copyright violation. If they ignore you, your recourse is to sue them. At the trial (at a federal court) you'd present any evidence you have to prove you own the copyright, etc.

I don't think the police get involved unless there is physical merchandise involved. For example, if someone is selling pirated movie DVDs on a street corner, then they are subject to arrest by the police. But for something like a website illegally hosting movies or songs or fonts or whatever, I don't think the police generally get involved at all. It's handled via a lawsuit.

If you think non English speaking font users are deliberately ignoring the EULA, try downloading a Japanese font with no English and tell me if it's okay for commercial use*. Don't tell me that they should Google Translate the EULA because what comes out is often nonsense. You can make out some of it but what a chore. I tried Google translating my own EULA and a lot of the points I was making were the opposite of what I had written in English. So now it's been properly translated by humans.

* unless you can read Japanese.

As for combating global piracy: Take that time to make your rules clearer. I'll bet a lot of the non-English speaking people who pirate fonts and use them for commercial use are probably not going to Google translate your EULA. I used to spend a lot of time trying to fight font piracy and what did it get me? It's just a waste of **** time, that's what it is.

@Typodermic

If you think non English speaking font users are deliberately ignoring the EULA, try downloading a Japanese font with no English and tell me if it's okay for commercial use*. Don't tell me that they should Google Translate the EULA because what comes out is often nonsense. You can make out some of it but what a chore. I tried Google translating my own EULA and a lot of the points I was making were the opposite of what I had written in English. So now it's been properly translated by humans.

Here's a suggetsion: why didn't you search for a real professional translator of each language — German, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian and Portuguese?

@Typodermic

Do you want my proof? I discovered and mistruted all your fonts, with the font Meloriac have been stolen at the forum!

I think things are a bit mixed up here...

Against piracy per se there is in most countries a law for that. So this should be dealt through the legal system with first making people aware of the breach of law by pirating, maybe they were not aware.

The EULA is a complete different thing, as licensing rules are different in each country. If you want to translate the EULA into every language then this is only of limited use if you don't check which parts of this EULA actually can apply in which country.

For example I know that here in Austria, and therefore probably Germany and maybe the whole EU, an EULA is often not valid, most of the time to the fact that it must be agreed on before the buy. In case of a software package in a local store this means that the EULA would need to be printed on the package. Online if one can take note of it (if there is a link on the page before you buy it), otherwise it does not apply at all. And if you can take note of it, then it is not said that every rule would apply, as consumer protection is quite high here. If I can't take note, then for example I could edit the font as much as I want, as long as I only print it at home for my personal posters or whatever (which would not be useful and is only a hypo-theoretical statement). I am not an expert though here.

The issue with the EULA is different though from copyright violations, which means close rip-offs or redistribution. This is protected by law in most states anyhow.

My point is that an EULA does not protect from piracy, because it might not apply. The legal probably has better means to confront piracy. As well there is probably no protection through an EULA, as people who pirate might be aware of what they are doing and that it is not legal, but don't care. It depends on the source where they get fonts. If a website hosts a font, it could be assumed this font is free. If one needs a file-sharing program or downloads a font from a file-hoster, it is clear that it is pirate-ware. In any case the EULA will not help you. It helps you to deal with those who stay within the law.

I think the EULA is important, but I think piracy is not so much the result of too little information, or non understood information. My feeling is most (font)piracy is done by people from the industry themselves, in other words people that should know better... In this sense I would say there is a culture of piracy, perhaps even an addiction.

I used to work at a design agency that worked almost exclusively with illegal fonts and software. I came there as a student and was never thought or told where and how to buy fonts. Some came with software we used, some were provided by the university. So at first I did not see the fault in what the agency did. The fonts and software were mostly downloaded from torrent websites, where one could download the whole Linotype, Adobe or ITC library for free... I now realise that this practice is wrong and that fonts should be properly bought and licenced.

What I'm trying to say is that education could be a way to battle piracy, if students are informed and thaught about licencing fonts, EULAs etc. And this would help to show respect to typedesigners as well.

@kevintheophile Wow, you're kind of borderline trolling, aren't you. It feels like you're more interested in getting a reaction that anything constructive.

Proof: No, thank you. Everyone already knows that fonts are easy to pirate. This topic has been discussed for about 10 years on this site. We all know that fonts are easily pirated. We've all seen sites in other countries offering commercial fonts for free. Don't expect us to get excited about old news.

Other languages: Yeah, someday. I shouldn't have mentioned it in this thread because I'm not doing it to effect piracy, I just want to make my rules better understood.

Gustavo,

EULAs and piracy are different matters. Someone making illegal copies of a font would do this disregarding what the EULA says. And piracy was already largely discussed here. So, let me focus on EULAs.

I agree with you that an EULA must be more easy to read and understand. This would help people to follow EULA's determinations. And I also agree that some people violate EULAs due to misreading of their conditions.

Anyway, there are limits to simplify a Law text –as an EULA. There are hundreds of technical terms in Law. As we talk about ascenders, descenders, terminals and x-height, lawyers talk and write using legal words which may cause confusion to people outside the Law world.

The best try to make EULAs more accessible is what Commercial Type do. They show the EULA in a column, at left. And a short description of the meaning of that part of the EULA at another column, at right. You can see this here.

About other languages, any auto translation would be disastrous when you're processing a technical text. A word could have one meaning in common usage of a language and a completely different meaning in Law. Sometimes, the difference is really subtle and there is no software able to handle all these questions.

Finally, rules about customers, copyrights and software protection are fairly similar in most countries of Europa, Oceania and Americas, and also part of Asia and Africa. So, for people of most countries, the rules applied in EULAs from other contries are similar to the ones from his/her own contry. Of course, there are always differences, but the basic is very similar.

@kevintheophile I can't fully understand your argument. Your writing seems to be degrading as the thread progresses.

But, what typodermic said. Translated and better EULAs are certainly a nice thing to strive for. Would that reduce infringments? Doubtful.