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This is Piracy?
Posted by Kooldez in
1 Mar 2011 — 5:35am
1 Mar 2011 — 5:35am
I've been wondering at this for some time now...
If I want to use a font in a headline or whatever, but I don't own the font -
Is it legal to trace that headline from say a catalog or an image?
Does that fall into the category of piracy/theft?
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1 Mar 2011 — 5:42am
It may be legal...in some places, but I thing the bigger question is, is it ethical?
1 Mar 2011 — 6:08am
Totally agree on the ethical side.
I was asking about the legal side though...
"...in some places" - is it piracy down under? or in Europe?
1 Mar 2011 — 9:16am
More to the point is this a good use of your time?
An hour or two tracing, digitizing and cleaning up an outline, vs. $25 for a font that will last forever and has better outlines and default spacing than your effort.
1 Mar 2011 — 10:32am
Hmmm...I feel like it's not since if it's offered. Fonts are everywhere, and it's hard to trace the copyrighting of them.
1 Mar 2011 — 2:22pm
No, this is what piracy is.
1 Mar 2011 — 2:42pm
It’s not piracy. And if you’re a student or just plain broke it’s acceptable. But as Simon noted, this is not going to save you any money if you’re doing commercial work.
3 Mar 2011 — 6:28am
Thanks for all the answers people...
Daniels, The font in question is an Arabic font, and due to, ahem, supply-demand issues,
it costs 250 Euros (for 1 weight, the whole set costs close to 800 Euros, I only need 4 characters)
Khaled, Thanks ), i've been there and i was just questioning this particular action,
I know very well what piracy is, just got stuck with this one...
DTF, Thanks for that pat on the back )
3 Mar 2011 — 11:59pm
Why don't you just email the foundry about it?
Maybe they can sent you just the word you need, converted to outlines.
12 Mar 2011 — 1:25am
If it were illegal or unethical, then I think there's a group of companies who owe Claude Garamond's descendants some money. They're called font forgeries, or by some senior members here, 'interpretations'. You can trace the artwork in Illustrator, and export to Fontlab. You can't give it the same name however, or say that its based on font x by somebody. That's how Richard Kegler stays in business. Just be sure that you save your file someplace, in case anyone desperate for money comes around looking for an easy frivolous lawsuit.
12 Mar 2011 — 12:22pm
>Occupation
>Font Pirate
Classy!
18 Mar 2011 — 11:46pm
In the U.S. the font is not copyrighted, so it's legal, unless it's patented (which is highly unlikely). In other countries, if it's copyrighted it's illegal.
So, in the U.S. it's legal - technically, unless they actually take you to court which they won't, but also unethical.
If the font designer states in the font's license that it's okay to trace it and do that, then it's okay, but that would be highly unusual for an artist to not care if his work is copied.
Not to sound unethical, but hypothetically, if you really wanted to you could just do it, and wait to hear from the font's designer. They may tell you to pay them for the usage and then you pay them for it. As a font designer though, I think that kind of thing is totally immoral, especially if you can totally afford to buy the font in the first place.