Re: The unmentionable

Sylvain Galineau wrote:

> So would it be fair to say that you're worried about people who are not
> your customers today and likely will not be tomorrow ? How does their
> behavior affect the font business then ? Revenue-wise, specifically ?

As explained here:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-font/2009JulSep/0822.html

See, particularly, the second big paragraph.

> I must admit I've sort of assumed that the primary font buyer was and would
> remain a design professional for quite some time, in which case the future
> piracy of today's non-customers could not hurt anyone's bottom line since
> you already earn $0 from them today.

Widespread unlicensed use undermines an important aspect of the value 
that design professionals pay for, namely relative, temporary or 
absolute exclusivity. [By temporary, I mean licensing for exclusive use 
for a fixed period of time.]

This is particularly of concern for commissioners of custom fonts for 
whom the typeface is an important part of their overall visual branding. 
As an example of this, I mentioned the Guardian newspaper, which has 
used custom typefaces to extend its branding to a variety of other media.

JH

Received on Thursday, 30 July 2009 00:28:03 UTC