"Yes, for amateurs and collectors, there is nothing at all wrong with seeking out free fonts..."

Most of the amateurs and collectors or other users of free fonts aren't much of a legitimate market to worry about. THEY DON'T BUY FONTS. And folks who have to use fonts for a living pretty much depend upon technically functional fonts, so most free fonts are relatively useless. I collect free fonts, but I don't think I've ever used one. I simply find it an interesting historical phenonmenon. I'm not saying that all commercial fonts are technically functional either, but most of the better known foundries can be trusted in this regard.

The whole "free font" thing has been made to be a bigger deal than it really is (by the commercial vendors). If someone is offering copied Adobe fonts in PC TT, would anyone really want to use them for anything you'd want to put out there?

Gerald, right on.

hhp

>And I still thank my lucky stars that I never
>encountered that dog photo (used in Mr Hutchinson's
>sidebar photo above) in an animated Flash way.
>
>Still photo, ink on paper, was (ahem!) more than enough.
>
>(When it originally appeared, did it make everyone want
>to buy more fonts? Or less?)

The dog photo - on one hand - generated more than it's fair share of comments. Both supportive of its tenacity and disapproving of its vulgarness. It's common knowledge that more people will speak their minds when something offends their sensibilities, than when something strikes their fancy. We certainly heard more complaints than huzzahs, but it the long run, the quieter folks spoke with their wallets - and the foundries rejoiced. I consider the arse de chien a successful campaign, thank you very much.

I am also thankful that our designers resisted the temptation to animate the aforementioned item.

Grant Hutchinson said

"...the quieter folks spoke with their wallets - and the foundries rejoiced."

Congrats!

I wasn't aware you were with the company. What is it that you do there, may I ask?

Joe

Joe Treacy stated:

>Congrats!
>
>I wasn't aware you were with the company.
>What is it that you do there, may I ask?

For the most part, I'm involved with the design of and integration of products into the Veer web site. I get my hands dirty as a code jockey as well. I'm also working closely with our product management team on new typeface development and identifying promising foundries we'd like to bring under our umbrella. Like most small companies, we all wear a variety of hats at Veer.

Grant Hutchinson said

>For the most part, I'm involved with
>the design of and integration of products
>into the Veer web site....

Thanks for telling me. It's nice to make your acquaintance.

Out of curiousity, how many people are still there from the old Image Club Graphics of the mid and late '80s? Anybody?

Not that I knew anyone there, then. I'm just generally curious; a history buff.

(I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that your company is operated out of that same location, more or less.)

Joe

Jay Fraser had mentioned earlier on

>...the Adobe "Classics for Learning" package,
>400 fonts for $99, seems like a pretty good
>deal. And its legal.

Does anyone have a link for this which actually lists what's in it? I visited adobe.com and darned if I could find any verbose description at all. Just a price/item listing in the edu area.

Thanks!

Joe

You should be able to find it here.

Joe mentioned:

>It's nice to make your acquaintance.

Likewise. Although, I believe we have actually met before - back in the early 90s at a Seybold or Macworld or some such monstrous software-soaked event.

>Out of curiosity, how many people are still
>there from the old Image Club Graphics of the
>mid and late '80s? Anybody?

There is only a couple other folks from the late 80s other than myself. Blake Springer was a contract programmer still attending high school in 1989 - he's now our technology and information systems guy. Brad Zumwalt was fresh out of university with a partial BComm and took over marketing for Image Club around the same time. He is currently an investor in Veer. Most of the other people at Veer came on board during the mid-90s (Aldus/Adobe) period.

>Not that I knew anyone there, then.
>I'm just generally curious; a history buff.

Well, I'm full of stuff for buffs.

>I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that your company
>is operated out of that same location, more or less.

Still based in Calgary - through all of the various iterations.

Nathan Matteson replied

>You should be able to find it here.


Thanks very kindly!

Joe

Grant Hutchinson said

>Likewise. Although, I believe we have
>actually met before - back in the early 90s
>at a Seybold or Macworld or some such
>monstrous software-soaked event.

Oops! :-)

>There is only a couple other folks
>from the late 80s other than myself.
>Blake Springer was a contract programmer still
>attending high school in 1989 - he's now our
>technology and information systems guy.
>Brad Zumwalt was fresh out of university with a
>partial BComm and took over marketing for
>Image Club around the same time. He is
>currently an investor in Veer.

>Most of the other people at Veer came on
>board during the mid-90s (Aldus/Adobe) period.

>Still based in Calgary - through all of
>the various iterations.

What a path, too. That whole ICG-to-Aldus (quite an accomplishment in itself), then Aldus+ICG-to-Adobe transition, was quite a week's worth of change, as I recall it being reported.

Glad you survived it!

Thanks again for filling in some interesting history for me. Much obliged!

Joe

> Can we here in the U.S. work out some kind of 'time share' with Mr. Tony Blair?

>What a great speaker. What a great leader. I'm captivated every single time I hear him. What great speech writing, too.


What a wanker. And yeah, Fred rocks.

"Most of the amateurs and collectors or other users of free fonts aren't much of a legitimate market to worry about. THEY DON'T BUY FONTS."

Exactly. Free fonts aren't necessarily bad. Of course, pirated fonts aren't a good thing, as they do certainly hurt sales--but not quite to the extent the intellectual property companies (foundries, music labels, moview industry, software companies, etc.) make it out to be.

Bad knock-offs, I think, are probably the most damaging, as they appear legit, and, technically, may be, but they harm the the integrity of the original work.

One bit of advice I thought was good was to try and obtain a new face for each project you work on. This is a great way to build a library of good type over time without a large up-front burden.

Another problem is that I think a lot of graphic designers fail to see the full cost of running a firm and fail to charge accordingly. It takes money to keep hardware, software, typefaces, updates, etc all running.

There is a case for free fonts, though. I'm an example. I now work for a government agency and as much as it pains me to say it, getting a PO for a full set of Univers isn't a big priority when it comes to spending tax payer money ;o)

So, to all of you type designers who have released the odd nice freeware face, thank you!

> What a wanker.

You're too kind.

Hey Joe, I think the one you really want is Berlusconi - now there's a people's man! :-/

hhp

Hrant said

>Hey Joe, I think the one you really
>want is Berlusconi - now there's
>a people's man! :-/

No, I'll pass. Thanks.

(I'm sorry that my comments are apparently so unfeeling or out of touch so as to give you the idea that I'd appreciate Mr Berlusconi.)

And yes: from now on, I'll keep my non-type opinions to myself.

Sincere apologies to the group.



'darrel' said

>Of course, pirated fonts aren't a
>good thing, as they do certainly
>hurt sales--but not quite to the extent
>the intellectual property companies
>(foundries, music labels,
>moview industry, software companies, etc.)
>make it out to be.


I don't at all mean to be smug, but, how exactly do you know that?

The third-party organizations in the US and UK and presumably elsewhere that cite the amounts of revenue potential that software piracy drains from various entities (who expect to be collecting such revenue), cite only as the result of taking and closely analyzing detailed surveys repeatedly, over time.

Some extrapolation might be necessary, and as such, they might actually be only as generally accurate as a typical countrywide population census might be, but how can you strongly infer that they purposely lie by inflating the numbers?

If you're privy to some authenticated survey document that reveals inflation of survey results, I'd love to see it.

By the way, these discussions about profit make me cringe, too. I did not get into type thinking about profit. I got into it for the type and what I thought could be done with it esthetically.

The tax people eventually want designers seeming to be in business to eventually declare whether they're hobbyists or really in a for-profit enterprise, so in my case, I chose the latter. (I never felt right about starting a type company as a non-profit - in the sense that the Internal Revenue Service defines non-profit.)

Along with being in business for oneself comes a lot of responsibilities. I think that if what I do is any good at all, that I should be able to expect a fair return on its sales. I also think that I should be able to expect others to respect my property.

Pirates subvert both those basic, human expectations.

And for what?

The pirate seeks to steal my property and upload it to others, dilute my revenue potential and wreak my business and my life, and break my artistic spirit, all to make themselves look cool?

How exactly does that make them the big man, except to other thieves, other thugs?

Sorry. I don't see the aura in it worthy of worship.

I look at a font pirate who takes and blindly uploads, and I see a selfish, immature, pitiful, very misguided person looking for love and acceptance while making some of the worst life choices possible for themselves.

I think it's especially hard to forgive pirates who rip off dozens of companies, and do uploads that go on for hours or days at a time. I'd say that kind of heartlessness doesn't change.

In my case, I know this about font pirates:

We spent much of the '90s being ripped off by pirates who one might expect to see in a list of names, and by others whom one might be surprised to see there.

They kept me from properly providing for my 84 and 92 year old grandparents when they came to live with us in '98, no longer able to care for themselves. They pretty much took out of my wallet money for my son's college education. Another family member, formerly employed here, is now clinically depressed because of how they took dealing with auditing the ongoing font theft problems. (I guess everyone reacts differently, some being more emotionally fragile than others.)

No, they haven't broken my spirit.

With it all (and believe me, it's considerable torture), I'm actually sad for the so-called pirates.

I believe that the only way to demonstrate that such pirates have made an effort to effect change in themselves would be to do this:

- Deliver a sincere, signed, written letter of apology
to each foundry ripped off.
Ideally, to each artist, since we
are talking about individual human beings
being ripped off.

- Destroy the pirated copies they have, and
recommend to those who follow them, to do the same.

- Make some effort at starting a long-term
repayment of some token amount of money.
(It's like with loaning money to a family
member or friend, where you expect to be
paid back, but they never quite do.
Even some token effort would show they care.)

The ripoffs are about personal decisions, about property and (for better or worse) about money (read, in tax terms: current revenues unrealized).

It seems logical to me that a mere "Well, you know, I've matured now..." really doesn't cut it and actually just exhibits zero maturation and more antisocial behavior.

To those who continue to pirate commercial fonts: You are seeing the fonts as something that they are not, nor were ever intended to be.

Speaking in general: Collect all the freeware, non-pirated, non-cloned, non-autotraced, public domain fonts you want. But if you want our fonts intended for retail commercial sale, be sure you have a license or bill of sale to document that they should legally be present on your computer(s).
Now, we actively notify the U.S. Treasury Department and other official bodies charged with going after entities that misuse or defile U.S. Trademarks, copyrights, etc. What a pain. But that's what they're paid to do. So now, if pirates won't heed my simple plea to stop, they'll eventually open their door to a uniformed agent.

Regarding the music industry fight (for example, via RIAA): Unless it's in the public domain, contrary to popular belief, it isn't 'your' music (meaning 'the fans' music'). It is the property of the rights holder (who may or may not be the original creator). It's only a matter of time before that whole issue is settled.

I also support the antipiracy effort the movie industry is mounting anew. The informative commercial before 'Spy Kids 3-D' last weekend was very good. (Although I couldn't understand why the URL to find out more, at the end, was flashed for about a second. Way too brief.)

The light at the end of the tunnel, for audio and video pirates first, really is an oncoming train. Unfortunately, I think a lot of confused kids (and their parents) are going to get some very unpleasant surprises.

It could all be avoided if people simply took stock again of what constitutes others' property.

I'll just leave my opinion on that there. I really don't want to keep getting off the type track.

But what you see going on with the RIAA? I believe that it's just a matter of time - measured shortly - that the commercial type industry starts to adopt the same tactics. Piracy has made it necessary.

Joe

> RIAA .... the commercial type industry starts to adopt the same tactics.

You mean alienating potential future customers and creating even more motivation for piracy, with not a hint of anything positive -certainly not profits- to show for it? That's just like US foreign policy: reduce terrorism by making more enemies...

Fortunately that can't happen in the font world, because none of us have nearly enough power to give us self-destructive delusions of omnipotence.

--

I'd recommend doing what Carter and Frutiger do: ignore what you can't change. Don't look back - just keep making newer, better stuff faster than the old stuff becomes undesirable (through piracy or otherwise).

hhp

Does the EULA for the Adobe Type Classics for Learning pack allow use on commercial project?


Re: Berklee's laptop program

My friend goes there. It is an AMAZING deal. You get the music industry's equivalent of Photoshop, InDesign, etc. (i.e., software bundles that run in the $600-1000 range) for an incredible discount. Hopefully art schools will catch on and begin to do this, and hopefully they will include legitimate type packs like Type Classics for Learning.

>>how can you strongly infer that they purposely lie by inflating the numbers?

They don't have to purposely lie to inflate the numbers, they could just purposely ignore a patently obvious secondary factor which makes the bare numbers (of pirate copies) unreliable as a guide to the actual cost to the industry in lost revenue.
While estimates of the number of pirate copies that are in circulation are only likely to be wildly inaccurate, estimates concerning the proportion of users of pirate copies who would have paid for the font if a pirate copy had not been available can be nothing more than fantasy guesswork.

Those with an interest in making the financial cost to the industry seem as large as possible can simply assume that every pirate copy has cost the industry the full retail price in lost revenue.

Those with a more realistic outlook are aware that most users of pirate fonts would never have paid for the font if they hadn't been able to use a pirate copy. Zero piracy would make some difference to industry revenue, but not much. The largest difference would be the increase in usage of freeware and software-bundled fonts.

===============

>I should be able to expect others to respect my property.
>Pirates subvert both those basic, human expectations.

Since when was respect for property a basic human expectation?

To my

>>how can you strongly infer that
>>they purposely lie by inflating the numbers?

Steve Paxton said

>While estimates of the number of pirate copies
>that are in circulation are only likely to be
>wildly inaccurate,


I think that's false.

I think it's quite possible to be accurate enough. There's always a certain amount of 'educated guesswork' necessary looking at historical trends of product usage, future projected usage, etc. That's normal.


>estimates concerning the proportion of users
>of pirate copies who would have paid for
>the font if a pirate copy had not been available
>can be nothing more than fantasy guesswork.


I think that's also false.

For instance, a large number of the users of pirate font software copies are people who work in the graphic arts. It's often art directors and also production workers at service bureaus. That's been well known since the dawn of desktop publishing.

Nearly two decades of police-accompanied raids on those businesses documented by the third-party monitoring organizations now have many thousands of logs of what software was present at the point of the raid.

There is plenty of data (and would have been by 1995) to get an accurate enough picture of the extent of piracy. An honestly accurate enough view.

Fantasy guesswork (again, I'd call it 'educated guesswork' since it's by professionals who have data collected to start with, and then extrapolate data professionally for a living) happens all the time in business projections.

I've watched the type industry for 30 years, and the microcomputer software industry since the early '80s, and I've never gotten the impression that there has been any effort to inflate piracy figures.

I run a business. I want the numbers to be as accurate as possible.


>Those with an interest in making the financial
>cost to the industry seem as large as possible
>can simply assume that every pirate copy has
>cost the industry the full retail price in
>lost revenue.


No. Sometimes it would have been a discounted price. But yes, every pirate copy has indeed cost the industry some tangible, definable cost.

Most every instance of piracy is, after all, a conscious act.


>Those with a more realistic outlook are aware
>that most users of pirate fonts would never
>have paid for the font if they hadn't been able
>to use a pirate copy.


I think that's also false, and I'd never make such an assumption.

If the user is of the mindset that a commercial software product is not worthy of payment (and it's known that the manufacturer expects the user to make payment is the user keeps it), then the user should not have the product in their possession.


>Zero piracy would make
>some difference to industry revenue, but not
>much.


Not true. It's an ongoing problem that has been with us since 1986 in the commercial world. That lost revenue for every year since 1986, is indeed significant.


>The largest difference would be the
>increase in usage of freeware and software-bundled fonts.


I don't think that one has anything to do with the other.

There will always be marketers who seek to prop up application software with fonts or clip art, though. (And there will always be graphic designers unfamiliar enough with the nature of competition to blindly rely on them.)

There will always be freeware fonts. And that's fine*. (*With the caveats already discussed.)


>Since when was respect for property a basic human expectation?


Well, why not? I think it is.

I'm a human being. I can define something for myself as my property. My expectation is that you will not try to take my property. I'm naturally surprised when you do. Sounds basic to me.


Why argue **for** piracy?

Joe

I'm not arguing for piracy, I'm asking for realism

What I'm saying is that if you eliminated piracy, then people who use pirated fonts would have options open to them, other than to buy the fonts they previously used for free.
I'm also arguing that in many cases, they would take one of those options rather than pay for a font.
I'm therefore also saying that its false that "every pirate copy has indeed cost the industry some tangible, definable cost".

>>I'm a human being. I can define something for myself as my property. My expectation is that you will not try to take my property. I'm naturally surprised when you do. Sounds basic to me.

My point is that property is a cultural phenomena, defined, not by you or me, but by people with...oh yeah, that's it...lots of property. Its not part of the human condition, although its often presented that way.
(Notice, for example, in the Americas, how European's stole everything in sight first, made stealing illegal second, built a society based on the right to defend your property from theives third).

I believe it is what Daniel Quinn calls "Mother Culture" in his books, Steve. Cultural "norms" so engrained that may not be questioned, and to do so will be met with extreme opposition.

Sadly, the western world works to those cultural norms and there is little point arguing the toss with people who cannot (or more accurately, will not) see another way of working or thinking. Those who have an interest in maintaining their own philosophies will of course spin figures to suit their own ends (pretending that, if only there were a magic way to prevent piracy, all the pirates would go out and buy the fonts. Ha, right!), and defend their standpoint vigorously.

Far better, I think, to put your philosophies into practice. Work on opensource or freeware lines and prove to people that there is room for more than one philosophical standpoint on property. Create a typeface of worth and use that will stand the test of time, and give it away, or dare to think of alternative licensing schemes.

Teach by example, by doing what you believe in. Prove that other methods can work too.

And Hrant... I owe you a beer for saving me the trouble of typing ;)

David,

I think you're right on just about all those points, especially that instead of arguing the toss we should be doing something positive. I've got something in mind on that front as soon as work/kids/study/cricket etc give me a chance to get round to it...watch this space

During the meanwhilst...
>>dare to think of alternative licensing schemes.

Do you know of any alternative licensing schemes for fonts?
I know there are some for software, but I've not noticed font foundries being particularly creative in this respect - even with their giveaways.

There used to be (maybe still is) a basic web editor called Arachnophilia.
This was marketed as careware - very definitely not freeware, because you have no right to use it if you don't pay for it, but careware because the price of the software is that you don't complain about anything for a whole hour. Once you've done that, then you can use the software.

<em>I don't at all mean to be smug, but, how exactly do you know that?</em>

'Cause I know people (sometimes myself) that have used software, fonts, movies, music, etc. that they wouldn't have purchased anyways.

BTW, I work for a software company as well, and understand the problem. However, not every piece of pirated intellectual property is a lost sale. Some are. Some aren't. Some actually lead to sales.

I'm not *for* pirating. It's illegal, and not a good thing. I'm just not for the way companies (in general) make obnoxious claims as to how much they are loosing to piracy.

<em>If you're privy to some authenticated survey document that reveals inflation of survey results, I'd love to see it. </em>

Like I said, I can only *prove* first hand experiences with it. That said, I don't think the intellectual property owners can prove the losses, either. It's a pretty muddy area.

Listen, I appreciate your stand on Pirating. You are not alone.

<em>The informative commercial before 'Spy Kids 3-D' last weekend was very good.</em>

It was bullshit. Kids trading a few badly ripped movies on the internet is not a devastating blow to the movie industry. What is bad is me having to sit through that sob-story ad (hey...how about cutting the lead's salary a bit!?) then 3 commercials, then TWENTY MINTUES of previews, and then 1 1/2 hour of crappy film making (Johnny English).

OK, that rant had little to do with type, but I had to get it out of my system.

Anyways, a good movie is a good moview. People will go see it and/or buy the DVD if they like it. Those pirating it probably aren't willing to fork over the $8 to see it in the theater anyways.

The current problem with inellectual property owners and distributors is their complete lack of trust in their own consumers. You can't win piracy. It'll never go away. So live with it, and respect and cultivate the consumer that appreciates the wares you are providing. All IMHO, of course.

Off topic:

<em>But what you see going on with the RIAA?</em>

I see the RIAA somehow convincing our legal system that 14 year old Cindy sharing a copy of a Brittney Spears song is somehow damaging the industry in the realm of $100,000 while at the same time somehow convincing the judge that their decade of price fixing was only damaging the consumer a total of $15. It completely boggles the mind how the RIAA is working right now and what they are getting away with. Gotta agree with Hrant.

<em>I've never gotten the impression that there has been any effort to inflate piracy figures.</em>

It's not the number of pirates that is wildly incorrect--it is assuming that every single pirated piece of property was a lost sale. There is simply no way to make that correlation. Your example of raided design firms does nothing to in fer that the design firm would have boughted the fonts in the first place (though it can probably be easily infered with hindsight, they would have.)

But, anyways, you have your POV on the issue and others have a different one. There probably isn't much use convincing each side. ;o)

OK, I'm confused. The posting field clearly says ENABLE HTML CODE is checked. Yet, obviously, my HTML isn't being rendered. What am I doing wrong?

steve paxton said

>What I'm saying is that if you eliminated piracy,
>then people who use pirated fonts would have
>options open to them, other than to buy the fonts
>they previously used for free.

They have those options open to them now.

The market is flooded with fonts bundled with applications and has been since 1988 or so, as I recall.

First of all, I have a very hard time believing there are people who get themselves to the point in their experience level where they simply collect professional, for-retail fonts and never actually use them commercially. But if there are such people, then somehow they need to get the message (perhaps through a collecting organization of some kind) that they should restrict their collecting to freeware that's not cloneware, until they are ready to buy.

The people (whether 'collectors', or art directors, designers, or production people) who amass commercial fonts without buying them do so because built-in OS fonts and application-bundled fonts are simply not enough.

That is, the commercial non-bundled fonts are indeed more desirable. Otherwise, the bundled fonts certainly would suffice.

(And yes, I've heard about those who believe it's a numbers game. Who took the old circa-1987 Image Club Graphics headline distortion, "He with the most fonts wins!" and grafted the mentality onto a rationale for mass piracy.)

Somehow, then, such pirates need to get their heads wrapped around the concept that if they need fonts beyond bundled fonts, and beyond non-clone freeware, that payment is expected of them.

I think this group is very comfortable with the idea of fonts requiring large amounts of research and development time.

Typically, companies that make comercial fonts expect that that R&D expense will be paid for over time by the market.


>(Notice, for example, in the Americas,
>how European's stole everything in sight
>first, made stealing illegal second,
>built a society based on the right to
>defend your property from theives third).

'European's' certainly are possessive, it appears.

I think that colonial history doesn't apply to this discussion. It's intriguing, of course. And we're all very lucky we don't live in such barbaric times.

But I think that not strictly focusing on the idea that modern day commercial for-retail fonts are commercial software (since 1984, or since the advent of EULAs, perhaps) that has always been meant to be metered and purchased, tends to cloud the issue.

And people are already too confused about this, in many corners.

Joe

'darrel' said

>What is bad is me having to sit through
>that sob-story ad (hey...how about cutting
>the lead's salary a bit!?) then 3 commercials,
>then TWENTY MINTUES of previews, and then
>1 1/2 hour of crappy film making (Johnny English).


Now, **that** we agree on! :-)

Joe

The main problem with font piracy is how easy it is to do. In the past, it required hard work to pirate a font. Since fonts went digital, it takes little more than a decision to do it. Until a solution to this basic problem is found, producers of fonts are entirely at the mercy of people's willingness to take the end user licensing agreement seriously. I have no doubt that most font piracy is due to shear laziness, ignorance, and apathy, not people who have a philosophical problem with the concept of property.