Font Licensing, Embedding, Piracy, And Copyright Liability

Not all fonts are free, and your license doesn’t typically let you share the font, only the finished product as an image/graphic. Failing to realize this can create a huge liability for yourself or your clients. As a Graphic or web designer if you need a free font check www.google.com

Subscribe to Diggnation! bit.ly And check out Revision3! – www.youtube.com The DJ of illicit mixtapes full of copyrighted music, Lily Allen couldn’t bear the abuse from her pro-piracy stance. Is ignorance a valid excuse for being a pirate?

44 Comments »

  1. DameDiabolique Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 3:03 pm      

    It would be better to explain in more detail what fair use is and how to prevent this type of infringement. At the end you say its not good to “steal” fonts but I don’t think that is the correct terminology. It is not that the font is stolen it is just this designer does not know that when they use this font on the webpage and makes it available to everyone to embed that it classifies as copyright infringement. So please explain this a little better about infringement and licensing.

  2. Josh Shifris Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 3:33 pm      

    Can anybody use any font for a YouTube video or do they have to license that font first?

  3. BlackwaterOpsDotCom Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 4:20 pm      

    If you don’t “embed” the font you didn’t violate the copyright assuming you had a license for the font to begin with (most font licenses at least)

    Likelihood you will get sued… Well Considering the penalty would be $10k per visitor to your site… how much likelihood are you willing to risk?

  4. Kevin Hagerty Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 4:40 pm      

    @BlackwaterOpsDotCom Are you aware of any lawsuits that are based on this issue? I’m interested in determining the likelihood of a small-time website getting taken to court over using a pirated font via the CSS “@font-face” embedding method. Also, isn’t there a difference between using this CSS method and simply using a font in a graphic (i.e., if a font is used in a graphic, the font file is not copied to the viewer’s computer, therefore no infringement has occurred, correct?)

  5. thetechgeneration Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 5:09 pm      

    valid points

  6. BlackwaterOpsDotCom Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 5:50 pm      

    That is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard. Typographers spend a huge amount of time learning to create readable, stylistic fonts. Having a Graphic designer making fonts is like having my mechanic manufacture his own parts.

  7. thetechgeneration Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 6:35 pm      

    As a graphic designer you should make all of your fonts

  8. Ryan Garvin Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 7:13 pm      

    An *image* of all the characters

  9. Ryan Garvin Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 7:26 pm      

    Yep. When a font is sold, you are buying the rights to use and display that font, but not to redistribute the file. It would be pointless to buy a font and not be able to use it. ;)

    As long as you don’t provide the means for someone else to type something in that font, you’re usually fine in the font developer’s licensing. An of all the characters contained in the font would be in violation, since someone can recreate the font in it’s entirety with that.

  10. chubz1337 Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 7:30 pm      

    it is a very amateur mistake but is very common! the reason why i avoid these special fonts is compatibility, like you said each computer needs the font package to display it properly.

  11. Nicholas Alexander Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 8:01 pm      

    should use your own. then you won’t be sued for copyright! like they said while i took classes. its alright for educational use.

  12. BlackwaterOpsDotCom Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 8:15 pm      

    No, RyGuy has it right, you can make logos, and Graphics, but they can’t contain the Font File, only the image or vector

  13. BlackwaterOpsDotCom Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 8:56 pm      

    My day rate is $1500 plus travel.

  14. BlackwaterOpsDotCom Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 9:05 pm      

    I think that would vary wildly from software to software, but generally if you make an image when you have legal access to the font, the image is then legal to distribute.

  15. lanceseidman Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 9:49 pm      

    What if the font is with a specific program and i use a trial, is it fair to use this font still and if no, how am I supposed to know?

  16. Ryan Garvin Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 10:41 pm      

    Anyway, you never share working copies of anything. Only flattened images. In the case of a website you either need your proprietary font as an image, or stick with something free (and preferably common to avoid forcing people to download the font in question.)

  17. itouchhacker241 Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 10:42 pm      

    I had graphic communications and we designed a few things in adobe indesign on macs and I copied all my stuff to a flashdrive on the last day, when I got home I installed the free 30 days trial of indesign on one of my computers (running xp, plan to upgrade to 7 soon) and when I opened a file for a 2012 calender we made got an error that one of the fonts was missing, but it still looked fine

  18. JMZ619 Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 10:45 pm      

    Really?

  19. Ryan Garvin Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 11:14 pm      

    As a Graphic Design student I even know that you can’t embed proprietary fonts…

    You have to rasterize or vectorize them first so they appear as an image.

  20. L.D Jenk Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 11:36 pm      

    Silly bint.

  21. mahkid1 Said,

    February 2, 2013@ 11:45 pm      

    (old news now, but…) title says pro-piracy blog, while in the vid they say she deletes her pro-copyright blog. Obviously, these are two opposite things.

  22. Somarinoa Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 12:15 am      

    Oh man…Metallica. I stopped listening to those guys with the Napster fiasco. I was listening to straight J-pop and vidya gaym muzak back in the day, and they made it significantly more difficult to find even -that- music. I’ve never gone back to listening to them since.

  23. George Strom Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 12:54 am      

    this show sucks. and why is the guy from myth busters here. you guys seriously sucks off dogs for Skittles.

  24. damarh Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 1:53 am      

    would you guys die if you put down the laptop for a second while you’re recording this shit ?

    rationalized <- realized is written like this

  25. DSXmachine Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 2:31 am      

    Get to the point, speak clearly, don’t stutter, and be prepared.

  26. doglover2282 Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 3:18 am      

    wtf they r trying to look smart with the laptop

  27. billybobjoe198 Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 3:49 am      

    That faggot cannot read at all.
    He trips all over his words and randomly replaces words.

  28. plutonicmind9 Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 4:37 am      

    No….that’s what she did..

  29. narazum0 Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 4:49 am      

    She was pro piracy until she started making money then she thought that since it was her stuff that she might not be getting payed for, she thought it was wrong.

  30. iOnlyUseBigGuns Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 5:41 am      

    I guess the way I feel is… They made the money… however they did it…. it’s theirs.

    The greed is one thing, but if they make the money fairly and wanna blow it, that’s their business.

  31. guyboy625 Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 6:20 am      

    i’m a mac, and i’m a pc

  32. mahkid1 Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 7:17 am      

    why does the title of this vid refer to lily deleting her pro-PIRACY blog? Bit misleading don’t you think?

  33. aether222 Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 7:29 am      

    they need to have an idea of what they are videoing first, huh… I thought the blond guy was dumb but thet both seem pretty, eh.

  34. dmac1968 Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 7:45 am      

    Learn to read dude…. seriously. You read at a primary school level.

  35. dmac1968 Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 8:09 am      

    Learn to read dude…. seriously.

  36. 8Rincewind Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 8:20 am      

    Really should have practiced before reading it on camera. This is actually just a conversation.

  37. 8Rincewind Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 8:32 am      

    Really should have practiced before reading it on camera.

  38. tspirit99 Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 8:46 am      

    Wow, you find any excuse to release some stress dont you? go masterbate!

  39. primefalcon Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 9:43 am      

    Do a search on joss stone and piracy… joss Stone rocks

  40. davidkeithbecket Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 10:15 am      

    oh wait i just got that you got my joke and were expressing your gotterage.

  41. davidkeithbecket Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 10:20 am      

    ok!

  42. fick dich Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 10:25 am      

    hehe, let’s change identities

  43. fick dich Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 11:12 am      

    I’d like to see these studies. Never heard such things.

  44. davidkeithbecket Said,

    February 3, 2013@ 12:03 pm      

    I’m a pc. And I’m a mac.


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