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Fonts: Licensing?

akbakb
edited October 2006 in Vanilla 1.0 Help
Hi there, I've got a fundamental question regarding fonts. I assume that fonts that you can buy can not be used without licensing them, so my question is: What if you do not own the license, but the designer that, for example, designs your logo does? Do I need to own a license if I bought a logo that uses a nonfree font? Does the designer need to convert the created text into paths or something to prevent this or isnt that enough for the "logo buyer" to be forced to buy a license?

Comments

  • jakob_rjakob_r
    Think of the font as a piece of software that you would use on your computer to achieve something. That means, if you want to use the font yourself and create something/write text with it, you need to buy a licence, if it's the finished product of using the font, you don't necessarily need to buy it. The logo designer can embed the font(s) in a pdf and you may use the pdf. Alternatively the designer converts text objects into paths, then the logo no longer contains the font. In this case the logo is like an image or a graphic - you can't use the font on your computer and you don't need to purchase it. (Note some font foundries have special rules regarding *distributing* PDFs with embedded fonts and sometimes a special licence can be necessary)
  • akbakb
    well, so it is just a thing of being able to access the font to change/add things and not to contain it in a premade product? :-)
  • KrakKrak New
    I have never understood why you would even buy a font. There are so many out there that are free.
  • akbakb
    Well, I just didn't find any of the style I am looking for yet. But anyway, that topic is just a general question. :-)
  • jakob_rjakob_r
    krak, true, there are lots of free fonts, but not so many good free fonts - many are missing characters, many have only one weight and fewer still have good character spacing. If you want to typeset a book, or even a more complex brochure, your choice of suitable free fonts shrinks drastically. Some of the better free fonts (and some of those are free versions of pay fonts) are listed at fontleech and praegnanz.de. One of the better sites for looking through the masses of free fonts is dafont.com.
  • akbakb
    oh, thank you for those links :-)
This discussion has been closed.