Re: The other party in all this

2009/7/6 Christopher Fynn <cfynn@gmx.net>:
>
> If some web-font format becomes widespread or mandatory you can sure it
> won't be long before someone creates a web-font to ttf/otf converter.
> Someone else might then re-convert them back to web-fonts and so-on. Trouble
> is such re-generated fonts may then be different enough from the fonts they
> ultimately derive from, that they become harder to discover and prove they
> are copies - or who copied what from whom.

I just posted this idea a little more sharply at Typophile -
http://typophile.com/node/59630 :

This idea that obfuscation (via compression, or expressly for its own
sake) will limit exposure of a font seems wishful thinking to me.

Nothing will stop graphic designers and everyone else who loves fonts
and who do not respect font licenses - which is most people, from what
I can tell - from not installing inevitable “web font vacuum” browser
extensions that will automatically install every font they happen to
browse across into the OS system folder, and using these fonts in
their print design work. I would also expect such “vacuums” to do what
non-paying web publishers want, too, automatically stripping the
watermarks, XUIDs and so on so that running a web-spider to search out
unlicensed fonts doesn’t spot them.

If font vendors try to proscribe the behavior of paying users in an
attempt to annoy non-paying users, they will only hurt their own sales
by annoying their paying users.

Policing web fonts is going to be a total nightmare for those clients
John Hudson just described on this list; those faced with the dilemma
of having a font asset they wish to send to everyone who visits their
website, yet not wanting anyone to use it. Perhaps Monotype and
Adobe’s legal teams will have time and money in the recession to write
takedown notices to people publishing their fonts without licenses, as
it makes more sense for them to bet their existing revenues (from
print based publishers, who are in decline) on the chance that new
revenues from web publishers (who have pent up demand, and are
growing) will be more profitable than sticking with the declining
market. But for clients as John described, they paid all the costs and
will not offset their loss of exclusivity through incoming revenue
from the font assets.

Received on Monday, 6 July 2009 06:11:15 UTC