MOD EDIT
Please remeber
File Sharing Is Not Allowed: Unless the file is your property to share.
Rule #9
https://signs101.com/threads/signs101-policies-outlined-tos-posting-policy-privacy-policy.149995/
distributes copyrighted files illegally
Actually, linking to an external site that distributes copyrighted files illegally is OK on Signs101, as clarified to me by SignsSupport a while back. Unless the policy has changed?
Source: https://signs101.com/threads/looking-all-over-for-this-font.149152/#post-1398308
My answer would be no, it isn't. Whoever licensed the font in order to create the logo in the first place, their license does not apply to you, the sign company. Font license terms rarely allow for the client to share the font with you. In most font licensing scenarios, each company or individual has to purchase per-computer licenses for a font.Which leads to the question; is it morally okay or justified to use a licensed file from one of these sites to help reproduce a logo that likely already had the license to use?
I don't understand why so many sign companies use pirated fonts. Just bill the client for the fonts. 80% of the time the client understands and gives the OK, in my experience. The other 20% of the time, the client asks us to pick a font we have in our library to use instead. We've never had a client insist on a particular font while refusing to pay for it.
Actually, linking to an external site that distributes copyrighted files illegally is OK on Signs101, as clarified to me by SignsSupport a while back. Unless the policy has changed?
Source: https://signs101.com/threads/looking-all-over-for-this-font.149152/#post-1398308
How is it any different than getting a logo that had been properly expanded into paths instead of text? I wouldn't need the license to print it then?
Scenario 2: You need vector outlines of the client's logo, but they only have a raster image. You must buy the font so that you can recreate the logo by setting live text and then converting it to outlines.
Of course in Scenario 2, often you might already have a license for the font, i.e. from a previous purchase or on a subscription like Adobe Fonts, or it might just be a free or open-source font.
That's something people often don't realize when they're downloading commercial fonts from "pirate" sites. Sometimes you get the real, original font files, but quite often the fonts are "ripped" from another format, like a PDF file or a web font, and are missing characters, kerning, opentype features, and sometimes even the outlines are poorly traced from raster.Now, with freebies on font sites. Sometimes ... they are knock-offs that don't have the alternates or even the same kerning as the professional font.