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Fonts are creative, intellectual property,similar to designers’ creative work or toproprietary business products. Since typeis so ubiquitous and fonts are so easy toshare among computer users, the legaland moral issues of the simple process ofusing a font are often overlooked.
USEOFFONTS
 
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There are four good rulesthat guide ethical practicein font licensing:
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If you are using a font, whetherit’s on your computer or thatof someone else, make sure youhave a license to use the font.
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If you want to use a font that isnot installed on your computer, you must either ensure that youor your employer has a licenseto install the font on yourcomputer or else acquire alicense to use it.
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If you have any questions about your font license, contact thefoundry or supplier of the font.(If you do not know the foundry or supplier, almost any foundry or supplier can help you identify the source.)
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Don’t lend or give fonts toothers to use. Your friends,clients and colleagues need toacquire the rights to use them. When it comes to licensing fonts, ethical practice makessense legally and financially. Violating the terms of a licenseagreement puts the designer,the client and future businessrelationships at risk. An ethicalapproach to font use and fontlicenses is therefore bothgood business practice andgood business.
Fonts are creative,intellectual property.
Typefaces are collections of letterforms. They endow writtencommunications with a style thatultimately reflects the characterand style of the originator of the communication, whether acorporation or an individual.Typefaces are the result of extensiveresearch, study and experimenta-tion, and for some designers,the creation of typefaces is a full-time occupation. The training andexpertise required to develop atypeface qualifies the product asintellectual property and meritsits protection under copyright law in many countries. A font is the software that describesthe characters in a typeface. Digi-tal fonts, like any software, areintellectual property and may besubject to federal copyright andtrademark laws.For additional guidance on soft- ware use and management, youcan refer to the “Use of Software”chapter in this book, on page 54.
You do not own a font.You license it for limited uses.
Fonts are not bought. The rightto reproduce them is licensed,and the license to use them statesspecific terms.The right to use a font designedby someone else is acquired fromthe foundry that created the fontand is granted in the form of anend-user license agreement, orEULA. Some foundries will allow asupplier to administer the licenseagreements for a font, but theagreement itself is always betweenthe licensee and the foundry thatcreated the font.The terms of use described by anend-user license agreement vary from foundry to foundry and may  vary depending on the scope of the desired use. Licenses usually grant permission for the licenseeto install a given font on a certainnumber of computers. However,licenses can also specify use onprinters, periods of exclusivity forcustom typefaces and distribu-tion rights. If you have questionsabout what you may or may not do with the font you are using, thebest thing to do is to contact thefoundry or supplier of the font.
 
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You need permission to altera font for use in your design.
Because the software that de-scribes a typeface is automatically subject to copyright protectionupon its creation, any version of the original font is considered a“derivative work” under copyrightlaw. The revision should not beconsidered an authorized deriva-tive work because the adaptationis derived from copyrightedsoftware. It cannot be used forcommercial purposes without violating the copyright.Some font licenses allow thelicensee to alter the charactersin a font or to convert the font toother formats. Other foundriesdo not allow derivative works at all without permission. Therefore,many designers, when asked tocreate a derivative work, have madeit standard ethical practice to getpermission from the font designerbefore altering any font data.If you need to find out who de-signed the font you want to alter, you should contact the foundry or font supplier.
You cannot share a font withsomeone who does not have his orher own license to use it.
Font software may not be givenor loaned to anyone who doesnot also have a license to use it.Therefore, misuse or unauthor-ized copying of a font that belongsto a client or your employer isan infringement of the designer’srights and could subject you tolegal action. When the client is the “end user”of the license agreement, thedesigner may not take the font with him or her when the projectis over, even though it may mean another license must bepurchased for the next job.
You can embed a font in a fileto have it viewed or printedby others.
 A font may only be sent with a jobto a service bureau, consultantor freelancer if the contractor hasa license for the font or if thelicense agreement makes provisionfor it. When necessary, it canbe acceptable for font data to beembedded in file formats such asEPS and PDF only for printing andpreviewing purposes, but not forediting. However, embedding isnot allowed by all foundries, so anadditional license may need tobe purchased.
This is an issue of ethics,respect and law.
There are tangible and intangibleconsequences of using a font without a license. If caught using a font without the proper license,the user will have to purchase thecorrect license for the font andin some cases pay damages to theoriginating foundry. More im-portantly, using a font without theproper license could prevent aprofessional designer from being fully compensated.It is the value of the intellectualproperty of a colleague that isultimately at stake in the licensing of fonts. To purchase the properlicense for a font, especially asa practicing design professional,is to recognize the value of acolleague’s work, to respect thepractice of another designer andto uphold the integrity of thedesign profession.
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