There have been a few threads mentioning this already. I could not find the one I was thinking of, which did not shed much light on it anyway, but I managed to find a Typophile article called Monotype's SkyFonts Service Enables Font Rentals but I cannot figure out if it is a news posting or a blog entry.

Looks like its a news posting. Did you sign up?

Not yet, but I may be trialling the service in the next couple of weeks.

how in the world can they limit the use of fonts to five minutes? Unless you have to use some kind of online app to design anything with (meaning you won't be allowed to download the font and install it on your system to use in your software program of choice).

I have the beta - it seems to work fine. When the time is up the text goes to Courier. :-)

The utility you install to use the fonts manages their availability.

hhp

how in the world can they limit the use of fonts to five minutes?

Is that a technical questions or are questioning the time frame?
The software you need to install pulls the fonts from a web server and installs them temporarily on your systems. When the time is up, they are removed again.

Seems like it would be pretty easy to hack

Not easier than simply finding a pirated copy of any font you like. But $5 for a month of use is even easier.

hhp

What’s to stop you from copying the installed font to an external drive? What happens if you disconnect your machine while you are renting the font? I don’t have an account yet, but I agree with Ryan. This seems full of holes.

You guys are making a lot of unsafe assumptions. Remember: you have to run a utility for this thing to work.

There's no icon of the font anywhere (at least on XP) so you can't copy it.

Chris, does time stop when you're not on the Internet?

--

You have to look at this pragmatically: even if it can be hacked, it provides an easy way for somebody to avoid piracy.

hhp

Seems like it would be pretty easy to hack
This seems full of holes.

I doubt that.
I am not sure for which “side” you are arguing. For 20 years font users complain that they have to pay the full font license, before getting the chance to try the font in their design apps on their machines.
Skyfonts makes a lot of sense in this regard. Try the fonts free of charge, present different options to your clients. And it's also great for something like recreating a logo with 5 letters, which you have just got as JPG image from the client. Now you just pay for 1 day to use that font and you don't have to buy the full license.
I find that much more convincing than Fontslice – especially, since Monotype has almost all the fonts the users really want to use.

So, as long as your LaTeX compilation run is under 5 minutes, all fonts are free now! :P

How many LaTeX users would pay for fonts anyway?

hhp

>Seems like it would be pretty easy to hack

They have an additional level of security...

:-)

OK, here we go:
"You Only Cache Twice"
"Pay Another Day"
"Quantum of Solus"
"The 200,000 Fonts CD for $5 is Not Enough"

Run with it.

hhp

lol, nice!

Dr. Neu.
The spy who kerned me.
From raster with love.
In her majuscule's secret service.
Too easy. Who are the other villains?

octothorpussy

A few more...

Hints Are Forever
From Russia With FontLab
236 DPI is Not Enough
A View to a Gill
Thunderballterminals

Boldfinger

We can continue this on the Typography jokes thread.

Dr. №