Typekit – the Future of Web Typeface
This evening, I went to a meetup for Typekit and met the people behind this potentially revolutionary product. If everything goes as planned, Typekit will allow us to use any fonts on our Web pages. Right now without Typekit, we have a very limited number of fonts we can reliably use; the rest of the fonts have to be created as images. So, this would be a welcome change.
In the last 15 years or so, Web browsers have dramatically improved, but the limited availability of fonts has remained the same. In the end, this problem comes down to one thing: licensing. It was never a matter of technology. If it weren’t for the licensing issues, fonts could have been distributed to the visitors of your sites in a number of different ways. (Or, Microsoft could have given away thousands of fonts for free with every installation of Windows or Internet Explorer.) The problem from the get-go was how to resolve the licensing issues.
Interestingly enough, typeface is not copyrightable. It’s like cooking recipes. The only way that typeface can be copy-protected is to sell the fonts as a piece of software. But, you could open a font in a program like Fontographer or FontLab, slightly modify it, and release it under a different name. As far as I know, this is legal. [Correct me if I'm wrong.] Technically speaking, a company like Typekit could probably batch process thousands of well-known fonts in this manner and release them under slightly different names, but this would naturally anger many people, and would never get the support of the design community.
Because typefaces are not copyrightable, typeface design is not a thriving business. Not many people are full time font designers. But Typekit can potentially change this. For me, this is the most exciting part of it. Because the fonts are distributed on demand from Typekit’s central server, it is easy to keep track of licensing and usage. They would be able to tell which fonts were used, where, and how often. It’s sort of like submitting your own music to a subscription-based music service like Rhapsody. Independent typeface designers might be able to submit their fonts to Typekit and make money based on usage.
I asked Jeff Veen, one of the founders of TypeKit, if they are going to accept font submissions from individual font designers; he sounded open to the idea. But for now, they are working with font foundries. Foundries play a role similar to record labels. They market and distribute fonts for font designers, but if Typekit can do it directly, this could work better for many type designers. If you could eliminate some people in between, you might be able to actually make a decent living as a font designer. (No offense to foundries.)
I think Typekit will be a successful product. It would be a quick and easy way for design firms to create a design that would stand out from the rest. It would be SEO friendly too since we wouldn’t have to use GIF images for any type. We could also give quick face-lifts to the existing websites, since the implementation of it is very simple.
—posted by Dyske » Follow me on Twitter or on Facebook Page
My understanding of typeface copyright law is – as you say – that the shapes of the letters are not copyrightable, but the software that describes those shapes is. Therefore, the situation you describe, wherein a typeface-creator opens an existing font into Fontographer, moves some points around and then releases it under a different name would in fact be a violation of copyright law, because the original font software (ie, the font file) had been used as a basis for the new font software. What IS legal in my understanding – though I am no expert either – is redrawing the shapes from scratch into Fontographer and releasing under a new name…even if the letter shapes are EXACTLY the same. Again, the design of the type cannot be copyrighted, only the software that describes those shapes.
@Tracy,
I wonder if that’s true about using the original font as a basis. In Fontographer, I believe there is a mode called “blend” that allows you to automatically blend two different fonts into one. (It’s been a while since I last used Fontographer.) If using the original font as a basis is illegal, then this method would be deemed illegal as well.
Again, I’m no legal expert but this is the page that I referenced to “confirm” my suspicions:
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=UNESCO_Font_Lic
Specifically the paragraph titled “Fonts are Software”. According to this, then yes, the blending method would be illegal too.
Well, it would be illegal IF you were trying to create a new font for general distribution/use. I think you would be within your legal rights if you blended two fonts (that you had the license for) FOR YOUR OWN USE, or for use on a client project.
I don’t believe it’s an issue of even changing the design but changing the software that draws the design. The house of representatives issued a report in 1976 on the issue and the copyright office followed agreed with this pov in a case before it in 1978 (yes, they have their own internal judicial system at the USPTO). Here’s a link regarding the report & decisions:
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/12/26/can-you-copyright-a-.html
There’s an interesting discussion on free fonts from bitstream here with a FAQ worth looking at at the bottom of the page from the font perspective of shareware projects
http://www.gnome.org/fonts/
Now I don’t know much about the nature of one type drawing software vs another but I imagine as long as an opensource version of such software application was available then any designer could use (or recreate) a freeware “redrawn” version of any font with impunity and simiply embed the font in the site using CSS linked to the freeware font url. No?
Most of the type foundries today ARE independent typeface designers. They are set up by the makers directly. So if you are talking about avoiding the people in between, it would make more sense to avoid services like Typekit, which will be exactly that: the in-between thing. If I understand Typekit correctly, one would have to buy the license for fonts twice now. Once for the use in print from the foundry, and second time from Typekit for use on the web. That makes little sense, and I would encourage type designers (foundries) to look for their own font embedding mechanisms. We are certainly going to do that.
@Peter,
But it makes no sense for every font designer to come up with his/her own distribution mechanism. Not every font designer is a hardcore computer programmer. Most of them would rather pay a percentage of the sale to a service that would take care of the distribution mechanism. If every designer is left for himself to promote and market his font, it would take a significant effort/money too. This is why, to me, Typekit makes sense. They can function like iPhone App Store. Since it would be a central place where everyone can come and browse, the marketing/promotion is easier for designers. (As opposed to every font designer selling his fonts on his own website.) AND, Typekit would take care of the Web distribution mechanism. They would be in a good position to ALSO sell the same fonts for print too; this way we would be able to avoid the double licensing scenario you are concerned about. That is, if you buy the print version of the font from Typekit, you are also licensed to use it for website. This is a possibility, although I don’t know if they would do something like that.
Some twenty years ago there wew indeed a few dominating type foundries, and it wasn’t feasable for independant smaller ones to compete with them. But the situation today is much different. Most of the interesting new fonts now are made by type designers that sell their fonts directly. Foundries such as Hoefler&Frere-Jones, House ind, Lineto, Process Type, BP Foundry, Underware, Emigre, Typotheque, etc, etc are run by people who first designed fonts and than unhappy with current choices for distribution set up their own channels. I agree that not EVERY type designer can sell her/his font directly, but the most interesting ones do just that. Since they did the hard work already (setting up websites, arranging distribution, marketing, etc), it is logical that they can extend their licensing to embrace the web too. The proposal of Typekit is not a rocket science, so you can expect more similar solutions soon. Precisely because there is not so much money in type design, it makes sense to msle the distribution chain as small as possible and not add more intermediaries.
@Peter,
I see what you mean, and I don’t disagree with you. In fact, if you do develop a similar mechanism to Typekit, I would imagine that you would be interested in offering it as a service to font designers who are not interested in developing such a distribution mechanism themselves. If you did that, you would be doing the same thing Typekit is doing. And, I would feel just as excited about your service, as I feel about Typekit.
There are several possible ways to embed/distribute fonts, but what I’m excited about is Typekit’s SAAS model (Software as a service model). This enable font designers to get compensated fairly, which means that font design might actually become a lucrative business (because they get paid by actual usage). If your distribution mechanism is not SAAS, I wouldn’t feel so excited. But to implement a SAAS model is not an easy task because if your server goes down, all the websites which licensed your fonts would be affected by it. I’ve designed fonts myself, but given that font design is a very time-consuming work, one designer couldn’t produce hundreds of fonts. To implement a SAAS distribution mechanism just for a few fonts that you designed, wouldn’t make any business sense.
If a SAAS model can be successfully implemented, font designers wouldn’t have to worry so much about copy-protecting their print fonts. They could in fact give them away for free, just to promote and encourage the use of their web versions. Print as a medium is shrinking in popularity and the Web is growing. So, if the font designers can make money from licensing their fonts for the websites, they don’t need to care about the print fonts.
Understood. I’ll pause this discussion now, and next time show you a working prototype.