Staying Legal: The Challenges of Font License Compliance WHITE PAPER

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1 Staying Legal: The Challenges of Font License Compliance WHITE PAPER

2 Font Licensing is a Serious Issue Virtually all graphics workflows include fonts, but very few organizations do an adequate job tracking font usage throughout their enterprise. Some organizations can t even determine which fonts reside on their users machines, much less how and when they are being used. Unfortunately, this inability to track font licenses and usage is a ticking time bomb. Software vendors and industry associations are moving aggressively to protect their interests and enforce font license agreements Font licensing is a serious issue. In 2009 NBC was sued by Font Bureau alleging that the broadcaster did not secure sufficient rights for fonts used in several advertising campaigns for their programs. Font Bureau claims that in some instances NBC paid for one copy of the fonts and then copied them to many computers, and in another case, the fonts were not licensed at all. Font Bureau is demanding two million dollars for the infraction. In January 2010 a design firm created a logo using an unlicensed font for Hadopi, a French government agency that regulates Internet access. This resulted in embarrassment for the firm and the government agency and necessitated an immediate logo redesign. The designer of the typeface is considering legal action. In 2006 the Business Software Alliance, an organization that educates people about software piracy and enforces software licenses, performed an audit of Campden Publishing. The audit revealed that Campden was using in excess of 10,000 different, unlicensed fonts worth more than $100,000. A storm of negative publicity rained down on Campden, and it was required to buy the fonts at once. These are only a few examples of what can happen when organizations fail to comply closely with font license agreements. The consequences are varied, but they are never good and usually cause severe and costly disruptions to your business, workflow, customer relationships and public image. Understand Font License Terms Before You Purchase Fonts are software and their use is subject to restrictions that are common in other software licenses. When you purchase a font, you do not own it; just as in a software application, you are allowed to use the font as long as you comply with the font vendors licensing terms. Violating the terms of font licenses is a serious offense subject to financial penalties and legal consequences. Fonts are software and you must implement policies and systems that enforce compliance with their licensing terms First, you need to be aware of the terms of your licenses. Font vendors include different terms and conditions in their license agreements. For example, Adobe Systems allows for the subset embedding of fonts in pdf documents, but Emigre only permits this if you distribute the pdf file to people and organizations that have also licensed the fonts unless your contract with them provides otherwise. To ensure your compliance with font licensing terms, you need to implement policies and systems so your organization purchases only fonts whose license terms are consistent with your project workflows. For this reason, before purchasing a font, you should always examine the terms of its license and make sure you can comply with its restrictions. Sometimes, you can license the same font from several vendors, making it easier to find a vendor with licensing terms consistent with your needs. 2

3 Many Free Fonts Have License Restrictions Many sites on the Web offer so-called free fonts. If you examine their license terms closely, you ll often find that many of these fonts are free for personal use, but require you to purchase a license if you use the fonts for commercial purposes. Understand the license terms of free fonts before you use them; many require you to purchase licenses for commercial use Sometimes the license terms of these free fonts are very vague, and can even be a bit impractical. For example, one small foundry has a license that says their font is free for personal use, but if you want to use the font for commercial purposes, you must send the foundry copies of documents in which the font is used, and then pay the foundry a fair-charge amount for the use. Very few commercial organizations could use such a font under those license terms; the legal fees required to review each use would dwarf the font license fees. As with traditional commercial fonts, it is imperative that you understand the licensing terms of free fonts before you use them. Another warning that clearly applies is the age-old rule of thumb of caveat emptor, or let the buyer beware. Make Sure Your Current Fonts Are in Compliance Unless you have been carefully monitoring and enforcing font license compliance in your organization, chances are your font collection isn t yours. It is likely to be a mix of: Unless you have been carefully enforcing font license compliance, chances are that your organization is using fonts illegally Legally licensed fonts that could easily be installed on more devices than you have licensed Fonts introduced to your workflow by designers who selected them for a project Fonts licensed for one purpose, but used for an unlicensed purpose Fonts added by freelancers without notifying you that they have done so Fonts legally purchased by single users, but that have spread across the organization Free fonts that people have downloaded off the Internet Fonts introduced and copied among machines because users thought they had the right to do so Fonts created specially for one customer and subsequently used by others without authorization It is likely that your collection is populated with rogue fonts that were installed without authorization on your organizations computers. This commonly occurs when freelance designers assisting on projects bring their own font collection which may or may not be properly licensed into your organization to create their designs. When freelancers leave, most leave their fonts behind. The fonts live on in your workflow and spread throughout your organization, leaving you wide open to legal action. In short, your entire current font collection might need to be evaluated for license compliance. If you do not have a documented purchase record for fonts you are using, chances are those fonts are being used illegally, and you are subject to financial and legal penalties if you are audited for font or software license compliance. 3

4 Get Control of Your Fonts with FontAgent Pro If you re not tracking font usage in your organization, there is no better time to start than now. The financial and legal exposure is simply too great. Insider Software offers an industry-leading line of font management tools to help you in your quest for font license compliance. If you want to centrally control and distribute fonts to Macintosh and Windows users across your organization, you should be using FontAgent Pro Server. It tracks license and purchase information for your fonts and alerts you of violations when you exceed your number of authorized licenses. The FontAgent Pro product line helps you manage and control your font assets while enforcing font license compliance across your organization In addition, FontAgent Pro Server enables administrators to assign privileges to users and groups who are best suited to perform specific tasks and limit distribution of fonts to only those who need them. It is a quick and effective way to make sure you are in compliance with your license agreements and more easily manage your valuable font assets. FontAgent Pro Server also tracks not only who receives fonts, but who activates them as well. This lets administrators know if users aren t activating specific fonts so admins can redistribute them to other users who can make better use of them. To stop unauthorized fonts from being distributed across their organizations, administrators can grant granular permissions that allow specific users to administer the font server, to upload fonts or to distribute fonts to users. For example, an administrator could give rights for a graphics department manager to create sets and add users to their group, but not the right to upload or remove fonts from the server, thus giving that graphics manager power to organize fonts for their group, and still protect the fonts stored on the server. Insider s FontAgent Pro client software for Mac and Windows workstations provides complete font management that integrates diagnostics, repair, font selection, font book creation, and design tools in a powerful, yet simple application for creative and business professionals. It also allows you to lock end-user systems so users cannot add or remove fonts, preventing rogue or unauthorized fonts from entering project workflows. To further prevent users from circumventing enterprise font-management policies, Insider offers Get the Font Out, an application that stops users from adding fonts to Macintosh system folders. A font audit is never fun. Even if you can ultimately prove that you have been in compliance with license agreements, the time and effort expended in demonstrating that fact can be staggering. This is because in a software audit, there is no presumption of your innocence. But with FontAgent Pro Server, you can provide evidence of compliance by just printing a simple report from the server s constantlymaintained font usage log. 4

5 For Software Trials and More Information For more information on how Insider can help you with enforcing license compliance and your other font management challenges, or for a free 30-day trial of Insider products, please visit or contact us. Insider Software, Inc US and Canada International Copyright 2010 Insider Software, Inc. All rights reserved. FontAgent is a registered trademark, and FontAgent Pro, Get the Font Out and the Insider logo are trademarks of Insider Software. 5