It is in the nature of fences to enclose everything within. While writing a post about Fontshop’s Web FontFonts, I followed a link and in trying to find out what fonts were being used, I found this:
/*The fonts and font delivery service used on this website are provided via Typekit, and are subject to the End User License Agreement entered into by the website owner. All other parties are explicitly restricted from using, in any manner, the Services, Licensed Fonts, or Licensed Content. Details about using Typekit, the EULA, and information about the fonts are listed below. @allow getuproot.com @allow www.getuproot.com @allow uat.getuproot.com @name FF DIN Web @licenseurl http://typekit.com/fonts/cde51de568/eula @name League Gothic @vendorname The League of Moveable Type @vendorurl http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/ @licenseurl http://typekit.com/fonts/bf5a95cb8b/eula (c) 2010 Small Batch Inc. */
Any ordinary reading of this notice would lead to the conclusion that “Licensed Fonts” or “Licensed Content” refers to the two fonts listed: FF DIN Web and League Gothic. And that Typekit is claiming rights over those fonts. (Go ahead, read it. Or read it again. Don’t take my word for it.) The message of the notice is clear: this stuff is ours, hands off. To leave no doubt as to its legal nature, there’s the (c) copyright symbol and company name at the bottom.
But League Gothic Is A Free, Open-Source Font
The only problem is that one of the fonts listed is League Gothic, a free font offered by the League Of Movable Type, an organization dedicated to producing free, open-source fonts!
How is it that Typekit is claiming rights to an open-source font? And one from an organization whose intention and purpose seems to be the philosophical antithesis of what Typekit is about?
Note: Hopefully, the folks at Typekit will respond with a reasonable, non-legalistic, and acceptable explanation. I have met and spoken at length with two of the co-founders of Typekit, Bryan Mason and Ryan Carver. I am making no assertions about motives or ill-intent. The facts are the facts, that’s all. I just don’t get it.
What’s The Harm?
The question is: are the rights of creators whose intention is to share freely as worthy of protection as the rights of creators who ask for compensation? It’s clear that the creators of League Gothic intend it to be a resource free and open to all. Therefore, I find Typekit’s legal notice – which defeats that intention – something worth questioning. Further, League Gothic is released under the SIL Open Source Font license. If the SIL license permits this kind of obfuscation, I’d say it’s time to amend the license. Even further, Typekit may be creating a liability for the owners of the site, which is surely something they might want to look into.
What’s ironic about this, is that when it was first launched, one of Typekit’s main selling points was that it offered an answer to the issue of font copyright on the web. A way for font designers to feel comfortable about offering their products and a way for web designers to make use of them without concern about legal hassle. Here, we see the flip side of the coin and I can’t say I was surprised to find it. Especially now, in the age of digital distribution, copyright has become about protecting the few at the expense of the public. Copyright is long on protecting those who demand restriction and very, very short on protecting the rights of those who wish to share. The free and open always tends to get sucked up into the vortex of restriction. It was this that made open-source EULAs a necessity.
One of the great things about the web is its technological transparency. If you see a technique you like, it’s easy to “View Source” or use a tool like Firebug to see what’s going on and then take it, build on it, and others are free to do the same.
About Copyright Fraud
Copyright protection for intellectual property is designed to insure that the rightful owner of an original work enjoys the benefits of that work. These benefits include the right to control the duplication of the work and the entitlement to collect any monetary gain from the work. Copyright fraud is an infringement of this right in that the profits from a piece of intellectual property are unfairly diverted to an individual or organization that is not entitled to the benefit.
In addition to civil remedies, intentional copyright fraud also carries criminal penalties. The intent to commercially distribute or reproduce the intellectual property to obtain financial gain must be established, and the intellectual property must be valued at more than $1000. Evidence of reproduction is not enough to establish a criminal charge of copyright fraud. Copyright fraud includes unlawfully placing a copyright claim over material that is often actually in the public domain. It also includes unlawfully removing a copyright symbol from intellectual property. In each instance, all unlawfully obtained profits must be forfeited. In addition, a fine of up to $2500 may be imposed for each offense.
So anyway, what’s going on here? Are the pirate-fighters, in a sense, pirates? At the least, it’s a mystery. And to the folks at the League Of Movable Type: how do you see this?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Actually, the copyright simply applies to our stylesheet. The fonts contained are covered by our End User License Agreement, but only when used via the Typekit service. All other usage, whether commercial, open source, or free, is entirely up to the provider of the font.
Jeffrey,
Firstly, thanks for responding – I’ll be attending AnEventApart in Boston in May. Hopefully we can finally meet. I’ve heard great things about your presentations.
>Actually, the copyright simply applies to our stylesheet.
Yeah, I know, but as a by-product it re-inforces the general atmosphere of “this is legal stuff”. I don’t mean to nitpick.
>The fonts contained are covered by our End User License >Agreement, but only when used via the Typekit service.
What I don’t get – and I’m sympathetic about the legal morass one has to traverse with these things, to the point of absurdity, really – how an open source font gets transmogrified into “Licensed Content” that “all other parties are explicitly restricted from using, in any manner”. Here, I think you should get with the lawyers and find some way to tweak the language to, at least, acknowledge that the web user who now has the font copied temporarily on his machine, might be perfectly free to use that font, albeit perhaps in another form.
You guys are certainly not intending to hide anything because the page at Typekit’s site explaining that it’s a font released under the SIL license is listed. My problem is, after reading the notice, what rational user would even bother to look!
Regards,
Rich
‘Explicitly restricted from using, in any manner’ is too broad a cover-all, basically. The actual font licenses are pointed to right there in the meta, the prose should simply refer to them — you could even keep the big ‘NO’ sign and add ‘except unless otherwise indicated in the fonts’ specific licenses (see below)’.
We’re committed to open source — most of the software we’ve used to build Typekit is freely available. It’s what makes the web go. And we’re especially interested the emerging collaborative efforts around open source fonts. That’s why we’re working with the League of Movable Type.
We’ll update that language to be a bit clearer as part of an upcoming release.
I’m a LMT contributor, though not one of the people running the place. League Gothic is not one of mine.
I would have to look at the OFL, but presumably it is written to allow embedding. If I remember correctly, what TypeKit does is embed the fonts in CSS or JavaScript or something, and so I do not understand what the problem is other than that the language needs improvement.
We are not used to seeing clear language in licenses; rather the opposite. We don’t know how to write the licenses or how to read them. I like the clear language of the ISC license, but it was not among the licenses offered by Google Code when I set up my font-development repository, so I wound up using the MIT-license, which makes my eyes glaze over, even though it might be the plainest free license in common use.
>so I do not understand what the problem is other than that the language needs improvement.
Exactly. That would suit me fine. As long as the verbiage doesn’t leave someone with the impression that the font is not freely licensed, I have no problem.
Typekit is perfectly free to offer it – even within a for-pay service. However, it was some weeks ago that I read the license, and there might be some caveats attached to doing so. Some licenses require renaming and other steps.
If my rhetoric seems overblown, it’s because this but one example of a much larger problem that we face with IP concerns and DRM on the web. When you build a fence it encloses everything within so when you do, make sure you’re not enclosing that which is not yours to enclose. Because there seems to be a tendency for that to happen.
So I was wondering since I would rather ask that read, if I put a copy of Pahelbel Canon which I bought would be fraudulent. Thanks.
@jaden
The point is: if you take a copy of Pachelbel’s Canon and bind it along with some other works that are still in copyright, and then slap a copyright notice and “All Rights Reserved” notice on the whole damned thing, is that legitimate? Is that fair to someone who isn’t familiar with the ins and outs of copyright and licensing? No, it’s a kind of fraud. Sorry. It just is.
With regards to Typekit, this is not the kind of thing they would knowingly support. They might find their own goof-up in this regard innocuous enough to ignore, that’s a judgment call, and I’ll respect it.
I am simply bringing up the point that even with the best of intentions, things can go awry.
That clarify it for you?