Re: I expect all foundries to start offering web font licenses within 6 months.

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 7:52 PM, Dave Crossland<dave@lab6.com> wrote:
> 2009/7/17 Thomas Phinney <tphinney@cal.berkeley.edu>:
>> On further consideration, I just wanted to say that "I expect all
>> foundries to start offering web font licenses within six months" may
>> not be so crazy.
>
> Well, as I admit, I am hyping things a little. But things do seem to
> happen fast on the web when standards bodies aren't involved ;-)

Does this mean we have to kiss the next time we see each other, just
to finish the process?

> But those protections are not DRM, and despite the server-side
> restrictions, the solutions are indeed supporting raw TTF fonts.

The only reason they aren't doing DRM is that it isn't practical to do
at their point in the supply chain. They would be happy with, and even
prefer, to be building on a DRM based solution. Or at least that's
what two of the three TypeKit partners said in discussion today after
lunch.

> Which makes all the cusses from various type designers against Wium
> Lie and Daggett and Hyatt for rushing ahead immorally with support for
> that format kind of funny, to me.

There's no irony there. TypeKit and their competitors have found what
looks like a business opportunity in making a silk purse out of a
sow's ear (from the foundry POV) and getting as close to DRM as they
can given the limitations of the underlying technology.

If the web font format war is never resolved, the foundries might
still never license their fonts for use as regular desktop fonts on
web servers. Why not? Because going through services like TypeKit,
Kernest and Typotheque gives them something akin to the protection
they want, while providing cross-browser support, and all that might
be preferable to the foundries.

Cheers,

T

-- 
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up
and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
- Sir Winston Churchill

Received on Saturday, 18 July 2009 01:44:25 UTC