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[bateleur]

Does anyone know anything about the legal position concerning embedding outline fonts in commercial software?

If I own the rights to "use" but not "redistribute" a font, does this mean I have to prerender all the strings I need to bitmaps in order to sell my software? If not, does it make a difference how easy it is to extract the font data from my software?

Advice appreciated. Links to authoritative references on this subject even more appreciated.

(The case I am specifically interested in is Flash's default embedding, but the wider issue is also somewhat relevant.)

[qubodup]

Ask the font copyright holder for clarification.









Without having taken a look at the exact license, I can only say the following:

If the file (.swf?), which will contain the font can be easily opened and the font taken from it, then you can't use it in that way. If it's hard enough to do so, then you might be in the clear.

I am not a lawyer.

[bateleur]

Ask the font copyright holder for clarification.

That would be ideal, except that I don't trust a font foundry that sells hundreds of copies to print designers to give an accurate answer to a customer who's already paid for their product!

As far as stripping the font from the SWF goes, it's a technical task but anyone who knows a bit about Flash and can find a decompiler on the web could do it.

[William Broom]

Presumably you signed some agreement when you bought these fonts, so you should probably check over that for clarification. I expect that nobody can give you a catch-all answer for every case like this, since there will probably be subtle differences between contracts.

[bateleur]

Presumably you signed some agreement when you bought these fonts, so you should probably check over that for clarification.

Good plan, but unsurprisingly it turns out to lack clarity!

Fortunately since posting this thread it's been pointed out to me that SWF embedding is very similar to PDF embedding, which is permissible, so there is some hope. I've sent a message to the MyFonts help desk for clarification.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

my solution to this is to only use completely public domain fonts, or default windows fonts that come with windows anyway and don't need to be embedded. or to make my own fonts (several of my early ohrrpgce games had fonts i designed myself in them).

[qubodup]

Ask the font copyright holder for clarification.

That would be ideal, except that I don't trust a font foundry that sells hundreds of copies to print designers to give an accurate answer to a customer who's already paid for their product!

"Fragen kostet nichts"

PS:     idiom "It doesn't hurt to ask!"

[DavidL]

From my experience with http://www.larabiefonts.com/ this is what I understand:

A .ttf file is considered a software. If you want to use the software inside your own you need a distribution license. I don't believe the fact that it's easy or not to extract the "software" (.ttf file) matters.

Using the font "software" to create an image(.bmp, .png, etc.) and then using the image inside your game is ok as long as you don't create an image for every letter and use these images as a way to bypass the distribution license.

So in my game, every time I want to use the font I need to make an image of the word. It's far from optimum and I would gladly pay for a distribution license if I had the ressources.

That said, your best bet is to directly ask them.

[Μarkham]

Using the font "software" to create an image(.bmp, .png, etc.) and then using the image inside your game is ok as long as you don't create an image for every letter and use these images as a way to bypass the distribution license.

Doesn't that go against the whole point of using a font?  If I can't use all the letters, why buy it?

[Loren Schmidt]

Larabie fonts (at least in my experience) seems to be pretty friendly toward small independent game developers. You might want to email Ray and see if he'd be amenable to working out some sort of small deal with you.

[DavidL]

Using the font "software" to create an image(.bmp, .png, etc.) and then using the image inside your game is ok as long as you don't create an image for every letter and use these images as a way to bypass the distribution license.

Doesn't that go against the whole point of using a font?  If I can't use all the letters, why buy it?

What I meant is,

let's say I have a chat in my game and I want to use the font to display the texts, then I'll need a distribution license. I'm not allowed to make a picture of every single character and map my players input with it.

Sorry for the confusion.

Larabie fonts (at least in my experience) seems to be pretty friendly toward small independent game developers. You might want to email Ray and see if he'd be amenable to working out some sort of small deal with you.

I didn't know I could ask Ray directly, last time I checked I was directed to the person in charge of the licensing. We haven't talked about the price of the license since I was mostly curious about using pictures of the font to avoid the need of a distribution license. Maybe he had a good deal in store for me, I'll have to give it a try.

Thanks for the tips.

[agj]

Fonts, at least truetype format ones (most likely OpenType as well), have an embed bit that defines such permissions. Some software out there respect this bit automatically. Since Flash is Adobe's, I'd expect its compilers to respect it.