Explain font licensing to me like I am a five year old
August 7, 2015 10:04 PM   Subscribe

I am trying to wrap my head around font licensing, but any resource I come across seems to be unbelievably convoluted. Like they're intentionally trying to make it seem as though it is more complex than it ought to be with all the legalese. Long story short: As a junior designer with a few clients, how should I deal with fonts without running the chance of getting dragged to courts?

I know fonts are considered pieces of software and it's illegal to download them. But-- say I am creating a logo, how is desktop licensing relevant? How is knowing the number of systems relevant? If a logo is a raster image that is used in an app, do I need a mobile licensing? Basically I need a primer on logo design, as well as using the font in things like (in sequence) stationery, marketing materials, apps, websites, ...
posted by omar.a to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Each person gets one AskMe question per week; this is in violation of that limit. -- LobsterMitten

 
For graphic designs (images, documents) You just need a license to use it commercially. Either you purchase that or it's freely available. Typically each computer being used to produce work with that font needs its own license, but again, it depends on the font you buy. In practice, if it's just you producing the work, there's no issue putting the font on, say, your desktop and laptop.

For fonts in HTML (web fonts), you need a web font license - likely separate, but possibly the font allows this freely.

For dynamic (i.e. non-image) text in mobile apps, you need a mobile app license that allows either unlimited installs or as many installs as your client has.

Sorry it doesn't get simpler than that, but most foundries/font services are good about spelling out how to get desktop/commercial vs. web vs. mobile app licenses, and you get used to scanning paragraphs of licensing legalese pretty quickly.

If you do contracts with your clients, you'll probably want something saying they're responsible if they give you a font (or other stock media) and it's not actually legal to use.
posted by michaelh at 10:21 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Michael covered it well.

In almost all cases a font EULA (End User License Agreement) pertains only to the computer where the font is installed. So, for the case of cyrusw8’s logo, once he makes that raster (or vector) version of the artwork, the EPS or PNG or whatever file can travel anywhere without a font license. Only the computer or user who installed the font needs a license. If the file requires the font to display correctly (such as an InDesign file), then the EULA must allow transfer of the license, or the recipient needs their own license to the use the font.

In the case of a webfont, the font is downloaded and installed on all the website visitors’ computers, so it usually needs a special license.

An app which has the font embedded is essentially activating the font on each user’s computer so it too needs a special license.
posted by Typographica at 10:36 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


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