Who reads font licenses anyway?
February 8th, 2012 by Jim Kidwell
Quite a few of you, that’s who!
They can be long, boring, and filled with legalese, but reading them can save you from costly missteps.
They’re font licenses, also known as the End User License Agreement (shortened to EULA). These documents cover what you can and cannot do with the fonts that you licensed. While typeface designs cannot specifically be copyrighted in the USA, the software that’s used to make them display properly on your computer can. This is why fonts are are pretty much licensed like other pieces of software.
We recently surveyed a number of people who were interested in server-based font management, and asked them the following question:
When you purchase a font, do you read the font license?
I was happy to see that almost half of our group actually read them. Since the survey was of people who are specifically interested in managing their font collection using a server, I was happy to see these results. That being said, I would like it to still be even higher.
Many type foundries (those who create and sell fonts) have worked to make their EULAs simpler and easier to understand. That being said, there are still many conditions where you may need to purchase an extended or modified license to use a font.
Some of the things that may or may not be permitted, or require you to purchase an extended license include:
- Embedding into a PDF
- Embedding into an distributable application – “there’s a font for that!”
- Embedding into an eBook
- Utilizing a single character or glyph prominently in a logo design
- Selling a product that consists primarily of featuring the font (such as a mug with an inscription, a shirt with a phrase on it, or magnetic letters for a fridge)
- Converting a font from one format to another
- Modifying the font in a font editor
- Using a font as a web font
These conditions vary by foundry. First step is to definitely read the EULA that came with your font. Can’t find it? Check with the foundry. While foundries vary in size, many of them aren’t very large, and you may be communicating directly with the creator of your favorite fonts.
So, if you’re already on top of this, good job!
If you’re “less than confident” about your licenses, I encourage you to get started today.
And, once you’re started down the right path, check out Universal Type Server to help you keep track your fonts and licenses.
Wouldn’t just be easier if the foundries simplified their EULA’s?
All the possible restrictions mentioned in the article only exist so the foundry can try and screw some more cash out of people who have already purchased a licence. It’s a stupid way of doing business. It’s like buying a car, getting home and finding out there is no ignition, so you can’t actually drive the car, and then you go back to the dealer and ask for the ignition, they tell you it going to cost more.
Given that the cost to develop a font 1 person uses is the same as developing a font 1 million people use, wouldn’t a better business model be to just charge a fair price (thereby sell more copies, and make more revenue), or maybe even make it free for personal or not profit use (getting more exposure for your font), and let whoever pays the licence fee, use the font in whatever way they desire.
There has been much simplification of language over the years, and many type foundries have made it much easier to understand what you can & cannot do with their fonts.
It would definitely be easier if everyone just used the same EULA across the board. Yet, since there are hundreds of type foundries across the globe (from one person shops all the way up to the big guys) you’re bound to get a wide variety of licenses. I always try to empathize with the small guy creating a high quality font in his basement over the course of a year or more. High quality work deserves compensation.
There will always be the guy who whips something out quickly who doesn’t expect to be paid. You can see a many examples of this out on the internet now. But you should also remember to never place the low quality fonts in the same bucket with a high quality font.
Economies of scale might work, if we had an iTunes of fonts, and every desktop user was fine paying for fonts. As it is right now, it’s an uphill battle to get many computer users to respect that fonts are software and should be paid for.
More people/companies would read font software EULAs if the font vendors could get together and work to standardize the langugae in the agreements.
Having different restrictions is fine, but EULAs should be written in English (not Greek) and shouldn’t have more pages than War And Peace.
Font foundaries…I hope you’re listening.
Don Montalvo, TX
I seriously doubt most people read any EULAs of any kind. Developers are into making them more complicated, not less. I have thousands of fonts from 20 years of collecting, and most of them don’t even have EULAs.
While you may have fonts from the past 20 years, I guarantee that all of them are covered by one license or another. Whether that be an open source license, or a commercial license, pretty much all software has a license. You may have gotten the fonts as part of another package – years ago, Freehand and Corel Draw came with large font packs – but those licenses were at the main installer level for the product, so you might not think of them when you’re seeing an individual font. Yet, those fonts are covered. Just be careful so that you don’t get yourself into trouble.
How many respondents were in this survey?
My interpretation of the results are that 46% are liars and 19% can’t tell the truth.
The survey was a survey taken during a webcast of individuals who were interested in server-based font management. Probably a group that tends to lean toward the side of being conscientious about these types of things. On the whole, it is possible that users don’t read font licenses as much as they should, and that’s a shame. Knowing what your rights and responsibilities are is important. I can help keep you (and your clients) out of trouble, that’s for sure.