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Open-Type fonts
- Thread starter SignosaurusRex
- Start date
Deaton Design
New Member
You can blame the a**holes that pirate fonts for whats going down.
Chuck got tired of people selling his fonts, trading them, and giving them away. I dont blame him for coming up with a way to defeat them.
If you have the newer versions of illustrator cs, and corel 12 or 13, the fonts will work fine in those programs.
Chuck got tired of people selling his fonts, trading them, and giving them away. I dont blame him for coming up with a way to defeat them.
If you have the newer versions of illustrator cs, and corel 12 or 13, the fonts will work fine in those programs.
Checkers
New Member
I can appreciate both sides of the argument presented here. And, as a small business, I would side with font designer/maker. However, If I was a larger company, installing font software on a network, I would be a little upset to say the least if there wasn't an alternative, network based, method to deploy the software. There's no way I would want to invest the time and effort to install a set of fonts on 3 computers, never mind a dozen or more.
The one thing I don't understand how a file can be "hidden" on your computer. I'm sure if you did an advanced search for "OTF" you'll find the files you're looking for and where they are "hidden".
Checkers
The one thing I don't understand how a file can be "hidden" on your computer. I'm sure if you did an advanced search for "OTF" you'll find the files you're looking for and where they are "hidden".
Checkers
Replicator
New Member
I agree that Chuck needed to take bold steps to protect his licensed fonts,
That being said how am I to protect my investment . . .
Example : I buy 20 fonts from Chuck/Letterhead $6-700.00,
now my computer crashes 3 months later and I had no way to back up the font files . . .
Is Chuck gonna replace all those fonts for me at no cost . . .
Or am I just SH*T outta luck ?????
That being said how am I to protect my investment . . .
Example : I buy 20 fonts from Chuck/Letterhead $6-700.00,
now my computer crashes 3 months later and I had no way to back up the font files . . .
Is Chuck gonna replace all those fonts for me at no cost . . .
Or am I just SH*T outta luck ?????
replicator, I’m sure that if you lost you fonts due to computer crashes, you can
ask Letterhead fonts to send them to you again, as long as you can prove
payment. I have customers call all the time who have lost their fonts for one
reason or another, as long as I have proof o payment I will resend their
orders.
As a signmaker and a font designer I definitely identify with both sides on this.
I think Chuck will eventually have it worked out to everyones satisfaction
soon. He will probably offer the font management program for free to
Letterhead Font customers.
This is beside the point, and doesn't make the medicine any easier to swallow,
but Chuck has been fighting Font Piracy for al long time. At one time I know
that he had even given up creating fonts just to do that. He lobbied MSN,
Yahoo, Google...etc, for help against the font sharing groups, with little
cooperation. He started the Digital Type Alliance group to fight piracy. He
chased down many free font sites that give away copyrighted commercial
fonts. He even worked to have my fonts and others besides Letterhead fonts
removed from those sites. So I guess that he had finally had enough of it
and took the only option left to him.
If you can no longer use Letterhead Fonts, Don't blame them.
ask Letterhead fonts to send them to you again, as long as you can prove
payment. I have customers call all the time who have lost their fonts for one
reason or another, as long as I have proof o payment I will resend their
orders.
As a signmaker and a font designer I definitely identify with both sides on this.
I think Chuck will eventually have it worked out to everyones satisfaction
soon. He will probably offer the font management program for free to
Letterhead Font customers.
This is beside the point, and doesn't make the medicine any easier to swallow,
but Chuck has been fighting Font Piracy for al long time. At one time I know
that he had even given up creating fonts just to do that. He lobbied MSN,
Yahoo, Google...etc, for help against the font sharing groups, with little
cooperation. He started the Digital Type Alliance group to fight piracy. He
chased down many free font sites that give away copyrighted commercial
fonts. He even worked to have my fonts and others besides Letterhead fonts
removed from those sites. So I guess that he had finally had enough of it
and took the only option left to him.
If you can no longer use Letterhead Fonts, Don't blame them.
bob
It's better to have two hands than one glove.
Wrong. They are the ones that decided to implement their wares in the way they did. For whatever reasons. The reasons only matter to them, and are of zero concern to anyone else.
You make a decision, you are responsible for it. Why you made a particular decision is immaterial. The responsibility remains with you.
Anything else is but a variation of the school-yard cry of 'He made me do it". That didn't work in the second grade and it doesn't work now.
SignosaurusRex
Active Member
I guess that means I get to go back to hand lettering101, painted, welded steel frame and PERMANENTLY mounted on clients rented location. Gotta move? "Sorry Mate, That'll be another 500 clams". I wonder if theres a legal presidance lurking in the bilge?
SignosaurusRex
Active Member
My layout and design fees just went up! "The American Dream" GOTTA LOVE IT!
geb
New Member
LHF have it set up so you have a user name and password, if I remember the conversation correctly. You can access your fonts you have purchased from LHF at LHF using your user name and password. Any open type fonts you have purchased will show and be accessible on the site, in case you upgrade computers or have a crash. At least this is my understanding last time I purchased and asked questions about the new system.
George
George
Fred Weiss
Merchant Member
The only legal precedent at play here is that Letterhead Fonts offers a license to their software. They can make the terms of that license whatever they want and it is up to the licensee to agree or not to agree.
As a software publisher, I can understand where Chuck is coming from. Resorting to a dongle is impractical as is a system such as Adobe has adopted. Raising awareness to the problem is, as far as I can see, the most workable response.
Bob, I have to take issue with your isolated attitude. You and the rest of us benefit immensely from the wide range of equipment, software and materials available to us. When a situation develops into a significant enough problem as to impact that availability or utility, we should all be concerned and seek to protect the interests we have in common with the vendor. That is simply in our own best interests.
As a software publisher, I can understand where Chuck is coming from. Resorting to a dongle is impractical as is a system such as Adobe has adopted. Raising awareness to the problem is, as far as I can see, the most workable response.
Bob, I have to take issue with your isolated attitude. You and the rest of us benefit immensely from the wide range of equipment, software and materials available to us. When a situation develops into a significant enough problem as to impact that availability or utility, we should all be concerned and seek to protect the interests we have in common with the vendor. That is simply in our own best interests.
SignosaurusRex
Active Member
I really dont blame LHF, after all, I changed my chili recipe changed too after mom swiped it.
Techman
New Member
They can blame the pirates all they want.
However, its been a long comming trend for software vendors to charge for every install of the product. Never mind the fact that you have one machine at home and one at the office and cannot use both at the same time. You can see the changes in their ULA pages. You were once allowed to install onto seperate machine but not use tham at the same time.
This is fine when everything works as planned. However, sometimes a vendor will go out of business, or products change ownership, records get lost whatever. In any case your out of luck.
In the end all these schemes do is cause hardships on legal owners. A better way to secure software is the server authentication method. That is, the software looks online at a central server for a good key and black lists any copied keys. This system is nearly invisible, nothing is locked, nothing is hidden. And best of all it wont motivate anyone to find a way to defeat this security out of revenge for getting locked out of fair usage.
However, its been a long comming trend for software vendors to charge for every install of the product. Never mind the fact that you have one machine at home and one at the office and cannot use both at the same time. You can see the changes in their ULA pages. You were once allowed to install onto seperate machine but not use tham at the same time.
This is fine when everything works as planned. However, sometimes a vendor will go out of business, or products change ownership, records get lost whatever. In any case your out of luck.
In the end all these schemes do is cause hardships on legal owners. A better way to secure software is the server authentication method. That is, the software looks online at a central server for a good key and black lists any copied keys. This system is nearly invisible, nothing is locked, nothing is hidden. And best of all it wont motivate anyone to find a way to defeat this security out of revenge for getting locked out of fair usage.
Bigdawg
Just Me
For me Letterhead fonts have always had limited use. I can only use them in designs that I can change the fonts to outlines in, since they cannot embed. Which means any offset print design, I cannot use their fonts in - and the majority of my design work is for print. If the majority of my work was done for signage it wouldn't be such an issue.
While I understand and appreciate the reasons they have done what they have to protect their interests, it limits me to the extent that I cannot justify purchasing their fonts for such limited usage. Love the fonts, but Veer has been getting more of my business because of the limitations with LHF.
While I understand and appreciate the reasons they have done what they have to protect their interests, it limits me to the extent that I cannot justify purchasing their fonts for such limited usage. Love the fonts, but Veer has been getting more of my business because of the limitations with LHF.
Replicator
New Member
I agree with you Stacy, in as far as If I am spending money to buy a font especially one
costing so much money, should I not be able to use it as I would any other font . . .
otherwise, it's not a special font to me, but a hindered font !
costing so much money, should I not be able to use it as I would any other font . . .
otherwise, it's not a special font to me, but a hindered font !
Mason
New Member
I agree with the premise of any attempt to thwart the piracy/theft of LHF fonts, that being said, the solution it seems has caused not what I would say is a hardship upon the end user but an annoyance which has ultimately caused what appears to be a loss in revenue for LHF. At least in as far as this conversation goes there 4 users who now look to other sources for fonts. Over time that translates into bigger losses, at what percentage were the fonts being pirated? not to mention the fact that one could easily convert the sets to curves and out put them to fontographer and create the set over with a different name, so where is the benefit??
SignosaurusRex
Active Member
Been playing abit with OpenType ( came on my new machine) a bit this morning, does'nt look like I can do anything With'em that I can send back to ANA and then plot. Oh Well. Anybody been able to?
artsnletters
New Member
fonts
I feel Chuck Makes a strong case for his position. And while it can be a PITA, i will still buy his products because these fonts are just what you need to stand out in this market. Too many stolen or haphazardly modified fonts exist out there in cyberspace. It's just TOO easy to grab free fonts off the internet....I've done it too. And it's a drag that they wont work with my OLD flexi version that runs on Mac OS9...It just adds an extra step..I'lll have to start w/ Illustrator to get the fonts than do what he says...create outlines. Still...all that said...You want quality...Pay for it. Your customers want quality...they can pay for it. Tim
I feel Chuck Makes a strong case for his position. And while it can be a PITA, i will still buy his products because these fonts are just what you need to stand out in this market. Too many stolen or haphazardly modified fonts exist out there in cyberspace. It's just TOO easy to grab free fonts off the internet....I've done it too. And it's a drag that they wont work with my OLD flexi version that runs on Mac OS9...It just adds an extra step..I'lll have to start w/ Illustrator to get the fonts than do what he says...create outlines. Still...all that said...You want quality...Pay for it. Your customers want quality...they can pay for it. Tim
Techman
New Member
Artsnletters
I think your on to something. If LHF has the time and inclination they could write a tutorial on how to work around some limitations. Then post that tutor into some protected folder. There the real customer could password his way into there and read that tutor and could over come any limitations.
I don't believe there are many people who would even think to use the font in illy and export the curves.
Checkers
New Member
Oh come on now people, if your business was getting robbed on a daily basis, I'm sure you would take whatever steps necessary to prevent it from happening again.
So, put the shoe on the other foot. How would you feel if I was your client and chose not to do business with you anymore because you needed to install an alarm system to protect your livelyhood? After all, if you had to install an alarm system, it means that your place is unsafe and I shouln't patronize it, right?
As for the people who can't work with open-type fonts, get with the program. Windows XP, which supports Open Type, was released more than 5 years ago. And just about any design program released since then can support it too.
Checkers
So, put the shoe on the other foot. How would you feel if I was your client and chose not to do business with you anymore because you needed to install an alarm system to protect your livelyhood? After all, if you had to install an alarm system, it means that your place is unsafe and I shouln't patronize it, right?
As for the people who can't work with open-type fonts, get with the program. Windows XP, which supports Open Type, was released more than 5 years ago. And just about any design program released since then can support it too.
Checkers