Contact information from WhoIs:

Alexandru Cuibari (domenii@racom-net.com)
+40.727701306
Fax:
Str Huedin nr 1
Bucuresti, BUCURESTI 040911
RO

You are also in luck - they are hosted in Germany, which is a civilized country, so you can probably take the whole site down by talking to these guys' hosting company -

address: Hetzner Online AG
address: Stuttgarter Straße 1
address: D-91710 Gunzenhausen
address: Germany
phone: +49 9831 61 00 61
fax-no: +49 9831 61 00 62
abuse-mailbox: abuse@hetzner.de

Just send an email to above email address, describe the situation and ask for a take down. See how it goes.

Germany, which is a civilized country

Lol.

Beg your pardon, Arno ;-)

Andreas

They've never responded to my requests either. Most free font sites will respond to removal requests but once in a while you have to shut a site down. In my experience its been really easy to get a font site shut down. I never used a lawyer for this. Usually the host has a policy for dealing with pirated materials. The form for removal may seem like such a pain to fill out. Being a hater of paperwork, I cut a few corners and it was just as effective. The ISP will attempt to contact the site. If, after a few days they haven't responded, they'll kill the site. That's been my experience and one of the sites was In Germany.

Hello

We remove the download option for this font on Jan 4 and respond to the email.

We will remove the download option for every font who is reported.

Alex

You are also in luck - they are hosted in Germany, which is a civilized country, so you can probably take the whole site down by talking to these guys' hosting company -

So you think a country where some random guy can take a site down without going to court is a civilised country? pretty barbaric to me.

P.S. I'm not saying Germany is.

I definitively don't think that a designer who demonstrates his/her work is being illegally distributed by a given site is a "random guy". Nor one needs to go to a court to immediately stop a violation to policies expressly adopted by sites and hosts. Barbaric would be a scenario where the "random guy" doesn’t have any quick and effective way to stop damage.

Well, I can also shot that guy who stole my wallet, after all I've the right for quick and effective way to stop the damage. You see, pretty civilised.

Last I checked, there were those things like courts and judges, I was not aware that they gave away their power to ISPs.

I can also shot that guy who stole my wallet

This is not a proper comparison. To steal a wallet is a crime against property and you cannot answer this with an action against life. But if the thief threatens your life, you can shot him/her when this is needed to protect yourself. Lawful responses need to be related to the offense nature.

I was not aware that they gave away their power to ISPs.

They don't. But in everyday life we have dozens of conflicts managed by private or adminstrative resources –since the excessive noise caused by the guy next door till return policies used by a shop. If they cannot solve the problem, then you have courts and judges. Judicial measure don't need to be the first option to solve conflicts (and actually aren't in many countries nowadays).

Imagine the difficulties Ray, living in Japan (or you, in Egypt, or I, in Brazil), would face to make a Romanian company to stop an illegal procedure based on servers in Germany. Much better to have a direct way to stop this.

Of course, we are talking about indisputed and clear illegalities. If there is a reasonable doubt about it, the situation cannot be solved so simply.

Of course, we are talking about indisputed and clear illegalities.

That is the whole point; who decides what qualifies as "indisputed and clear illegalities" and what not? if not court and other legal authorities. Well, someone might find it acceptable for an ISP to take such rule, but making it a criterion for "civilised" countries! seriously?

Khaled, you made me remember an eternal question there is in Hermeneutics. Some say that a really clear and obvious rule does not need to be interpreted. But other reply that to judge a rule clear and obvious is already an interpretation –and thus there are no rules immune to interpretation.

I partially agree with this and, logically, also partially agree with your arguments. Final word must come from legal authorities and ISPs aren't them. But I still think that some situations can (and must) receive immediate solution.

A simple example: drugs based on isotretinoin can cause severe damage in fetuses and are sold under close control in many countries. Let's say I am an ISP and a site hosted by me is announcing direct sales of isotretinoin, without Physician prescription nor any kind of origin control. Someone notice me about this and I verify this is true -it's published on the site. Must I wait for a judge manifestation or is prefereable to shutdown the site immediately?

This is a situation I call indisputed and clear.

Or let's say a site hosted by me is delivering free fonts. Someone notice me one of the fonts is his property and cannot be freely distributed. I verify the font available as free download is identical to that on sale in MyFonts, whose author is the person who noticed me. The font contract does not permit its free distribution. I call the site responsible to remove the font in 24h. He doesn't do that and I shutdown the site.

This is also a situation I call indisputed and clear.

But let's say the site owner answer me arguing the commercial version of this font is actually a renamed copy from another one, developed under GPL by a group of Ubuntu users and freely distributed by them. I report this to the claimer, who explains he was a member of this user group and did permit them to use his font under given circumstances. He later left the group and now sustain his permission did not include free distribution of the font. To avoid confusion, he changed the font name and also added some small improvements.

Well, here you have a situation which cannot be handled by nodoby except a legal authority. Is not to the ISP evaluate how true are these allegations nor if the font can or can not be freely distributed.

In a simple statement, undisputed and clear situations relate to undisputed facts and clear rules.

@Khaled Hosny:
So you think a country where some random guy can take a site down without going to court is a civilised country? pretty barbaric to me.
While the term "civilized country" was actually being used somewhat in jest, this isn't really vigilante justice.
In the Western industrialized countries, copyright laws are strictly enforced. Individuals who intentionally violate them are potentially subject to severe legal penalties.
Internet Service Providers are not held responsible for every web site which they host, because it would be unreasonable for them to inspect each web site for copyright violations. However, they are legally obligated not to be a party to a copyright infringement.
So it is possible - in the United States, there is a formalized procedure, the DMCA takedown notice, for this - for a copyright owner to advise an ISP that a site which it hosts is infringing one of its copyrights.
In the United States, under this formal model, the ISP is obligated to pull the site, unless it is willing to accept responsibility itself that the content is not infringing, but the site owner can then deny the infringement. Because of this, there are legal penalties for a false DMCA takedown notice.
Even where this doesn't exist, normally, one notifies the ISP, they will investigate on their own to ensure the complaint is not frivolous, and if the site is ignoring copyrights, as they are understood in the ISP's country, they will pull it so as not to be a party to an illegality.

Does anyone have sympathy for a font site which:

makes money from hosting free fonts
strips off the licence agreements
adds their own advertising
doesn't provide contact information

That's what ffonts.net is. There are a lot of reputable free fonts sites. Whoever runs ffonts.net has no respect for font designers. If a website doesn't provide contact information, they're obviously not interested in being contacted. I've wasted a lot of time dealing with broken contact forms or searching for non-existent contact info on font sites like this one.

Alex: please contact typodermic@gmail.com as I have a legal matter which I wish to discuss.

Met the same problem for François Boltana's Champion hacked as a font called Champignon: 1 million downloads!
http://www.dafont.com/champignon.font
I've transmitted the info to Boltana's widow (I am writing a book about François Boltana)
The best answer is to set up a legal and fair offer, imo.

Does anyone have sympathy for a font site ...

It is not about sympathy with that or this, I'm just worried about the general idea of a web host/ISP shutting some website/cutting someone of the internet because of alleged copyright infringement.

Just wanted to say thanks to the various people who helped me out. The ffonts.net site has pulled the download option for Satisfaction, and attempts to download it now actually get rerouted (after a few clicks) to myfonts.com where you can get a legitimate license. Thanks to other vigilant watchers I was also able to shut down a few other pirate sites which I didn't even know about. Now if I can just get Taylor Swift to respond to my tweets about those pesky album covers....

It is not about sympathy with that or this, I'm just worried about the general idea of a web host/ISP shutting some website/cutting someone of the internet because of alleged copyright infringement.

If an ISP shuts down a font site, it can be moved to a new host. It probably takes less time to move to a new host that the days I wasted trying to contact font sites with no contact info. If an ISP sets down rules and the customer doesn't follow them and doesn't respond, they can move to a new host.

ffonts.net contacted me too and the issue was resolved. My fonts still are still missing their license agreements but screw it.

Hetzner seems to have turned off the German website jurablogs.com yesterday for a few hours. Obviously without a court order. And not because of copyright violations, but because someone disliked the reporting. So you probably had good chances to get ffonts.net removed – in the civilized country Germany is.

Out of interest, have you approached the owner of ffonts.net about seeking compensation? Perhaps you can negotiate some form of deal.

They took it down?? Does anyone need a mirror? :D