I don't think this is so bad. But anybody doing it for him should charge something.

hhp

HHP, Mark good ideas, but I think this guy doesn't want to pay anything. Its the free lunch thing.

You know he posted another request, the same thing. He called himself Cheeky. I like James idea. I can't figure out wiether he's just cheep or really doesn't understand how silly his request is.

They still have it, now they charge 5 or 10 euros for it.
And Letterror picked up on that too.

But that stuff only works for short display settings.

hhp

> But isn't that like misusing your license to make money?

Not at all - it's [generally] within the license. More importantly,
I actually think it's a great way to [indirectly] encourage font sales.

hhp

But isn't that like misusing your license to make money?

What's ironic is that's how the whole typesetting industry
used to be set up. You would buy a font from a foundry and
then people would pay you to set words with it. Of course,
nowadays anyone with a computer is in effect a typesetter
and is supposed to buy their own fonts when they need
something typeset.

Well, there's a difference between a typesetter and
a typographer. Anyway, I didn't say it was a
good thing that everyone's a typesetter now. :-)

Sergej's right -- I mean, you type designers are already rolling in money, living as you do in gaudy (not to say goudy) mansions, wearing those ostentatious gold chains and riding in limos. Isn't it enough that you have beautiful groupies hanging on your every stroke and pixel? You have to bilk us peons out of our hard-earned cash as well? The nerve.

Oops, I just realized I was mixing up type designers and rap stars. Damn, I always make that mistake.

>intellectual property

Doesn't that include texts ? Plenty of people make serious money from writing.

M.

Matha, please call me Dan or Danny, the only people who call me Daniel are my doctor as in "Daniel, Daniel, Daniel is that you again" after I've had a bike crash or a running injury or my girlfriend when she is really mad at me, thanks.

If someone did provide the 'typesetting service' as a pro bono design job, would it be as reprehensible? What if his typographer friend (who owns the face) did if for him?

I'm not defending Cheeky, sounds like a cheapskate to me, but it's an interesting ethical/ legal problem.

Sorry for a late reply, guys, but I had my reasons. I'm no goddamn weasel.

I never wanted to have a long-winded discussion about all this shite because the absurdity in that only makes me more disappointed in you. The absurdity is in the fact that it would take you five minutes to help a stranger who politely asked for help if you were able to provide him with the outline, but instead you choose to use your "valuable" time on talking out of your asses. This is what prompted me to write the original comment in the first place, so absurdity laughs me in the face when I see you continuing being totally clueless.

I do mind answering a few questions for two reasons. First of all, no one answered, or even tried to answer my question, so I don't feel like answering yours. Second, I've heard "What do you do for a living?" argument a hundred thousand times before and you don't have to waste your time convincing me that the world revolves around money -- I know that already, and I do need money to eat and be able to talk to you.

By asking me about what I do for a living, you are only proving my point. You think about money and even want to talk to me about money. Well then, why the fück don't you just say it? I mean, if you see nothing wrong with measuring everything with money, why don't you just stay cool and answer my question like this: No, I can't think in terms of anything other than money. Than we would agree and no one would get hurt. How about that, eh?

If you want to talk about money, go talk to Meredith -- she seems to be more than willing to put words into my mouth. If you ask me more question, I'm sure she'll be glad to answer them for me.

You don't have to call me mister to pretend to be polite when you aren't. I don't have the courtesy, but neither do you, so let's just cut the crap, shell we? I'm not insulting you on purpose, but you are being insulted by my honest opinion about you. You can change that opinion, if you wish to, or care -- it's mostly up to you.

I don't "barge" in here. What is this, some kind of small, snobbish, private cocktail party? Am I supposed to crawl or squeeze in here? This is a public forum were I chose to voice my goddamn honest opinion. If moderators feel like it, they are welcome to ban me from here. And by the way, if you weren't all singing to the same stupid tune, I probably wouldn't have my voiced opinion the way I did. Do you realise how cliquish you all sound?

My whole point, if you still haven't realised it, is that you should be nice to people around you when you can, when it doesn't really cost you anything. When was the last time you helped a old man on the street to carry a slightly heavy bag? I can argue that it does not take much to provide someone with an outline, if you have what it takes. If you can't help, or don't feel like it, just go by. I don't care whether you roll in the money or not, but when you start talking about charging money for five minutes of your time, you are making an arse out of yourselves. We are not talking about greed here, but arrogance.

I'll comment on the original post that started this thread: It's not illegal to make an outline of a typeface and share it with someone else, nor do I think there is anything ethically wrong with that. Comparing an outline of a few letters with a font sounds like a bad joke -- there is much more to a font than that. It's almost an insult to someone who actually has created more than just a few letter outlines. It's not bold to politely ask for free help as the guy did. If anything, it's daring, and I wish there were more daring guys like him.

To Yves: No, the typography section on my webpage is not my idea of being funny. In fact, I haven't written anything more boring than what you can read there. There are even some factual errors in there, like the claim of non-existence of system-wide font substitution in Win2000, but I'm too lazy to correct all that shite. On the other hand, I don't take myself too seriously, so you are welcome to laugh at my boring babble if you think it's funny.

(I don't understand -- if everyone disagrees with me, who the fück voted my first comment so high? Should I suspect you guys for pulling off some kind of prank on me? I don't think this is amusing.)

What a waste of a life.

hhp

Sergej... I think most people here do think in other terms than money. If you do work honestly as a designer or even as someone who designs type, you always end up underpaid, except if by some magic trick you end up being the next Neville Brody, David Carson or Stefan Sagmeister. You always put love in your work and do the details and stuff like that ... an no client ever pays enough for that. You don't become a designer for the money... and if anybody does, he or she will end up disappointed. As with any craft, I guess. You do it because you love your job.

>you should be nice to people around you when
>you can
Most folks here are -- check out the typograhic ID section, It takes TIME to identify typefaces for the people asking here... and while other companies charge money for font identification, here it IS free.

The problem here is that the initial poster from MyFonts.com isn't willing to spend 35 $ or whatever it is on Charlotte Sans and NETWORKING SOLUTIONS LTD. doesn't sound as if he's doing a work-for-free or thing or a student job here, does it? And for a simple sample, there are enough type teasers on the web -- as on the Fontshop site -- to get a gif of the visual feeling of Charlotte Sans, but no, he wants a useable and scaleable and editable EPS -- ergo he wants to save money on not buying the font.

If he were a student or would make clear that it is pro-bono work, he'd probably gotten his outline. I've yet to meet a small-minded and petty type-designer.

I agree with your initial POV, that people should be nice to other people, but most remarks here didn't strike me as arrogant or mean-spirited but rather as tongue-in-cheek until you kind of PO'd Yves and some others.

it would be funny if everyone went to the guestbook
on ian's site and requested a hi-res scan of a previously
purchased photo. ha ha ha.

>they want me to set their address in Corpid in a proper format, as an outlined EPS file so they could drop it into their documents without having to buy the actual fonts. Is that acceptable?

Of course.

so i followed my own suggestion above,
and got a prompt response from ian.
from the e-mail: "All my prints are copyright..."

indeed. i guess he has the advantage
over type designers in that he can actually
copyright his work. but as far as ethics,
not much difference.

I don't see you as a jerk, but a bit uninformed. You didn't explain your needs in the original post, so you got a reaction to the information you gave. This gem, "I fully appreciate Isaac's posting on my site now but I would say that photography definitely has far more imagination than a simple few words of a font," only furthers the impression that you don't understand the point (from my perspective).

A) The typesetting (or copying, as you put it) is only part of the equation.

B) The font as a whole represents a lot of time and energy and creativity.

You indicated in your original post that you wanted to circumvent the purchase of a font that you recognized and costs only $40. Why not add that negligible cost into your bill? The time spent on the purchase and typesetting alone should cover it anyway. Redrawing a font that isn't made of basic geometric shapes is time-consuming and difficult, and will just result in a sub-standard product anyway.

Your needs are understandable, I'm put in that position occasionally as well, but you've stumbled onto issues that are large and long-running. If you want to people to understand your needs and your situation, then write clearly and completely next time. Just asking for free font outlines and typesetting without explanation doesn't garner much sympathy.

I'm also curious what 'imagination' has to do with anything, as well.

>is this a good direction for Typophile? Does it veer toward Font Police behavior? Anybody have an opinion...

It was a novel post, because people usually want free fonts, not free typesetting. So therefore certainly worth discussing. And concerning a photographer, that made it interesting too.

Ian, there are some angry people in these forums, so don't get into a pitched battle with them. My point being is that you learned about why people should pay licencing fees, and you're next job that needs a typeface you don't have, you will go and ask your boss to tack on any costs of the type to the job and bill the client. If he says no then explain the job can't be done without the font. You've taken your lumps, time to move on. Dan

Ian,
I can understand your position because I've worked for tossers like your boss before, and I know that there's nothing you can do to make him pay for fonts, or even to pass on the cost to the client.
The problem is that when you work for a reputable company (as I have done for many years now) you get frustrated by people like your boss because
a) They undercut companies who go by the book, because they use pirate software, fonts, music, images etc
and
b) They are in a business to sell their own creativity and technical competence, and all the while they are stealing other people's creativity and technical competence.

I understand that the recommendation to tell the boss to pay up is unrealistic if you still want a job next week. I don't know what you can do except look for another employer.

If I were to write a concise parody of all the spineless anonymous attacks
I've sustained over time, there's no way I could do better than that! :-)
Repleat with mistaken ethnicities and bad advice.

--

Ian, I guess just be happy I'm not going over to a photo list and dissing stuff you're into.

Context, habeebi.

hhp

correcting myself on fresh read.
inference sted of inferrence!?
doh~!#!*

Joseph, I see the dilemma, however, to me, an anonymous attack is much more egregious than a non anonymous attack. I mean, if you ARE going to attack someone, why do it in a spineless cowardly way? Either attack them with your name attached or don't say anything at all.

I would also go as far as to say that it's excusable to fight back at someone who doesn't have the decency to show themselves.