Typophile - PDF font extraction - Comments

They may be infringing, but

EK — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:26:21 -0700

They may be infringing, but they are not “stealing”.

There’s no way that a

Jackie T — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:25:08 -0700

There’s no way that a single weight of any display font ever cost $480, much less $580.

It sounds to me like Gravis found House Industries and wanted one font from a “package.” House Industries only sells it by the package.... hence the hefty price.

Gravis, many times when I’ve helped folks ID a typeface (that they only need for a few words) and they can’t afford the type - they’ve asked me to set the type and send them a jpg. They are stealing and I’m still typesetting. It works. I’m sure there are others out there that have never minded giving a word or two or three out in graphic form to help someone. I’ve received many thank yous, a wedding invitation to a big to-do in Utah and folks that have now tried to help others.

The world still goes round.

“Darrel, that is a problem

aluminum — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:59:34 -0700

“Darrel, that is a problem that needs to be overcome. Fonts must be thought of as a tangible object.”

No. That only harms and muddies the argument. IP concepts need to be understood and respected. That’s the key.

As Eben hints at, Gravis’ arguments are silly and easily dismissed. You don’t want the industry’s counter-arguments to be as silly and easily dismissed as his (the RIAA is a good example of fighting silly arguments with equally silly counter-arguments)

Fonts must be thought of as

Eben Sorkin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:38:47 -0700

Fonts must be thought of as a tangible object.

I am not sure. When Rhapsody or other similar services rents music instead of licensing it like iTunes does it’s a different business model. Like renting a Hotel room. Then it’s a service. Certainly these is no equivalent that I know of in type today, but there might be and the possibility of the model existing makes me think that there really could be a variety of valid and ethical ways of thinking about the font business.

I was very happy to buy the El ten Eleven (helvetica movie soundtrack) as a DRM free uncompressed FLAC file. The fact that they made it possible to do that endeared them to me. My loyalty to their ’Brand’ is higher now.

So while I think Gravis’ ideas about font licensing are sheer lunacy and delusion more or less, I do think that it absolutely behooves the industry think seriously about new flexibility in order better master the social and technological landscape - for straightforward business reasons.

Of course this is high minded talk which short on substance. And I admit it.

“Thanks for the fonts”?

crossgrove — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:27:30 -0700

“Thanks for the fonts”? Not only was poor Gravis forced to steal, he was forced to be snide about it. Boo hoo. Yet another self-righteous teenager.

There’s no way that a single weight of any display font ever cost $480, much less $580. Single display fonts tend to cost between $10 and $30. And where does this mysterious markup come from? Why wouldn’t you take the lower price, if it was ever quoted as such? There isn’t a “wholesale” price that gets marked up by the only available outlet; it doesn’t work that way. Forced to pay higher prices, too. ;(

Home users would probably be going to the popular font sites to make their purchases, if they were legitimately willing to pay at all. And once there, they would find a range of prices on a wide selection of products. Choices all around.

The entire thing is nonsense, and a weak excuse for file sharing. Whether it’s music, fonts or other software, it’s really just ignorance, entitlement and denial that keeps you from acknowledging the hard work that goes into any of these things.

Darrel, that is a problem

Miss Tiffany — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:50:45 -0700

Darrel, that is a problem that needs to be overcome. Fonts must be thought of as a tangible object.

The Porche analogy is always

Ralf Herrmann — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:05:48 -0700

The Porche analogy is always fun, but alas, we’re talking about physical objects vs. digital copies.

Sure, these are different things. I was just commenting on the “I was forced to do it”, not on the type of goods. That’s a different story discussed many times before on Typophile.

I’m going to play

aluminum — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:20:24 -0700

I’m going to play devil’s advocate, but before the dogpile gets too deep...

The Porche analogy is always fun, but alas, we’re talking about physical objects vs. digital copies. The analogies can get problematic. It’s the difference between shoplifting a book and photocopying pages of the book at the library for research.

As for spending hundreds of hours creating something and selling it for $5, there’s definitely an argument for that if there’s a mass market. It’s not an hourly billing, but a product that can easily be resold many times. So, Gravis, if you’re saying that a $5 price point would increase sales a thousand fold, perhaps there’s some logic to that. But I’m guessing that’s not the case*.

* though that would be an interesting study...two equal typefaces different in form only...one sold for $5 one sold for $500...would the first outsell the latter more than 100 to 1?

>> Yes, Gravis - I’m sure

jasonc — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 05:56:02 -0700

>>
Yes, Gravis - I’m sure if you’d spent hundreds of hours creating something you’d be quite happy to sell it for $5. That makes good commercial sense, especially if it isn’t popular. Who wouldn’t want to work for 1 cent an hour?

Nick Cooke
<<

Yes, Gravis has convinced me!
My new rate for Custom Truetype hinting is $0.25 / hour!

Jason C

(just kidding, BTW)

Yes, Gravis - I’m sure if

Nick Cooke — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:00:14 -0700

Yes, Gravis - I’m sure if you’d spent hundreds of hours creating something you’d be quite happy to sell it for $5. That makes good commercial sense, especially if it isn’t popular. Who wouldn’t want to work for 1 cent an hour?

Nick Cooke

It’s really not my fault I

Ralf Herrmann — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:11:41 -0700

It’s really not my fault I stole that Porsche the other day. I only wanted to drive it for a week, but they said I would have to buy the whole(!) thing for 50.000 bucks! Can you believe that? They forced my to steal it!

Yes, the idea that you were

Eben Sorkin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:16:05 -0700

Yes, the idea that you were forced to pirate is nonsense. All the bravado you worked up along the way is likewise.

Darrel, you make some good points about one-off rendering...

I’m going to be honest

aluminum — Mon, 9 Jun 2008 11:35:48 -0700

I’m going to be honest here, Gravis...your ’need to post a funny picture on a forum’ argument won’t likely change anyone’s mind to cut their prices by 400% and start losing money in the process.

That said, it’s a concept that’s been tossed about now again...a ’typesetting’ license for one-off uses. It has some credence. Of course, for just making a goofy non-commercial JPG to impress your friends, one would assume a screen shot of the word set via the foundry’s online typesetting tool would have not only sufficed, but been the quickest way to accomplish what you wanted to do.

Gravis, if you are not used

SuperUltraFabulous — Mon, 9 Jun 2008 10:54:41 -0700

Gravis, if you are not used to paying money for good fonts then that means you won’t know how to use them well anyway.

Sorry, not impressed!

im going to be honest here:

Gravis — Mon, 9 Jun 2008 10:45:47 -0700

im going to be honest here: you are charging too much for fonts. all i wanted was a font to mimic a famous tabloid so that i could post a funny picture on a forum. however, when i finally found the font it used, it was $480 to get the font pack and the proxy site that wanted to sell it to me had a huge overhead as it was $580. now, im a home user and no home user is going to pay that outrageous price. i know you are targeting commercial entities so really, you had this coming. i was honestly willing to plunk down $5 for something i would probably only use once or twice but no, now you wont even be getting that. you have only yourselves to blame for this.

thanks for the fonts,
Gravis

name type emb sub uni object ID ------------------------------- -------- --- --- --- --------- FEIEKC+Interstate-Regular Type 1C yes yes yes 60 0 FEIFAJ+EldoradoText-Roman Type 1C yes yes yes 54 0 FEIFFO+EldoradoText-RomanSC Type 1C yes yes yes 64 0 FEIFNI+Interstate-Light Type 1C yes yes yes 80 0 FEIIGG+Interstate-Bold Type 1C yes yes yes 130 0 FEIPAI+Rhode-BlackNormal Type 1C yes yes yes 87 0 FEIPGP+Rhode-MediumExtended Type 1C yes yes yes 71 0 FEIPLE+Rhode-SemiboldCondensed Type 1C yes yes yes 78 0 FEJAAK+Rhode-SemiboldWide Type 1C yes yes yes 75 0 FEJAFP+Rhode-BlackWide Type 1C yes yes yes 107 0 FEJAKE+Rhode-MediumCondensed Type 1C yes yes yes 94 0 FEJAOI+Rhode-BlackCondensed Type 1C yes yes yes 97 0 FEJBDO+Rhode-BoldWide Type 1C yes yes yes 122 0 FEJBKE+Rhode-MediumWide Type 1C yes yes yes 110 0 FEJBPJ+Rhode-BoldExtended Type 1C yes yes yes 114 0 FEJCEO+Rhode-BoldNormal Type 1C yes yes yes 126 0 FEIJIE+Interstate-LightItalic Type 1C yes yes yes 40 0 FEINAL+Interstate-Black Type 1C yes yes yes 35 0 FEJEBE+Rhode-MediumNormal Type 1C yes yes yes 28 0 FEJEFK+Rhode-SemiboldNormal Type 1C yes yes yes 23 0 FEJJHO+Rhode-BlackExtended Type 1C yes yes yes 18 0 FEJLPL+Rhode-BoldCondensed Type 1C yes yes yes 13 0 FEJOKA+Rhode-SemiboldExtended Type 1C yes yes yes 8 0

PDF font extraction

Nick Cooke — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 02:03:42 -0700

I am curious to know whether it is possible to ’extract’ fonts from pdf documents. I can’t remember where I heard it, but I seem to remember it may be. Sorry, I can’t be any vaguer than that!