What a rip off!

Charles Borges de Oliveira
Charles Borges de Oliveira Posts: 71
edited March 2013 in Technique and Theory
So this guy took my font Gloria and is selling it on myfonts. UGH!!!!!

I hope myfonts pulls it!

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/borutta/duce/

My font is this:

http://www.letterheadfonts.com/fonts/gloria.php

Sucks.....
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Comments

  • Jackson Showalter-Cavanaugh
    Jackson Showalter-Cavanaugh Posts: 539
    Ouch. You've written to MyFonts and Mr Machalski, right? #26 on Hot New Fonts means he owes you some money.
  • Charles Borges de Oliveira
    Charles Borges de Oliveira Posts: 71
    I contacted Myfonts. I haven't heard back. I didn't ask for money. Maybe I should have?
  • Eris Alar
    Eris Alar Posts: 455
    Does Myfonts have any official policy for this sort of this? Especially regarding compensation?
  • Jackson Showalter-Cavanaugh
    Jackson Showalter-Cavanaugh Posts: 539
    No, and it really shouldn't be MyFonts role to deal do anything other than immediately pull the fonts. This is really an issue between the two designers.
  • Charles Borges de Oliveira
    Charles Borges de Oliveira Posts: 71
    Yeah. I don't think I'll bother trying to get the royalty from the guy. He would probably just tell me to go pack sand.
  • George Thomas
    George Thomas Posts: 648
    @Charles: You should at least try. You might be surprised, and the worst he can do is say no.
  • Charles Borges de Oliveira
    Charles Borges de Oliveira Posts: 71
    @ George. Yeah its cool. I don't even want to deal with the guy. I would rather just make fonts and do lettering :) Max good idea!
  • Jan Schmoeger
    Jan Schmoeger Posts: 280
    I would rather just make fonts and do lettering :)
    Good idea. Your work is great and one ripoff is not going to change that. Instead, be flattered, Charles—this guy and MyFonts' customers are making you a compliment.
    Pity that it costs you money, though. Is there a way of posting this discussion somewhere?
  • James Puckett
    James Puckett Posts: 1,998
    But I wonder whether they don't have a responsibility to do more to keep their site from being a marketplace for stolen goods.
    Agreed. I’m about to launch my own store. One thing that pushed me to get off my ass and get it done is being sick of MyFonts laziness in regards to IP. They’ve posted plenty of ripoffs that would have been caught if they just ran the fonts through WhatTheFont. We need to find a way to embarrass Monotype into forcing the issue.
  • Eris Alar
    Eris Alar Posts: 455
    I confess, part of me would love a job assessing submissions looking for rip offs. Although I suspect I would get sick of it pretty quick.
  • Max Phillips
    Max Phillips Posts: 474
    We need to find a way to embarrass Monotype into forcing the issue.
    Maybe I'm naive, but is it possible we'd get better results if we tried some honey before breaking out the vinegar? MyFonts has strong business reasons for distinguishing itself from the free font and pirate sites. Monotype lives on its IP, is in the middle of a major branding initiative, and has a few episodes in its own past it probably wants to put behind it. And people in general like to think of themselves as good guys, not bad guys. Why not write a letter to MyFonts, with as many signatures from the type world as we can gather, assuming they share our desire to address this problem and proposing this or a similar kind of remedy? We wouldn't have to put the onus entirely on them; there are probably many members of this forum who'd be quite willing to flag dubious faces when they ran across them. (For liability reasons, MyFonts would probably have to promise to keep tipsters' names confidential.) I'd be happy to draft such a letter and put it up here for review, if no one else wanted to. We could gather signatures here and on Typophile; forum members could also reach out to colleagues. I don't think we need to limit ourselves to designers who sell thru MyFonts; I think MyFonts wants to be seen as a good citizen of the type community, and cares what the community thinks. What do you think?
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,216
    Yes indeed, MyFonts are the good guys.
    Plagiarism is a very tricky business — a lot of grey areas.
    Fortunately, this Duce business is rather obvious.
  • Eris Alar
    Eris Alar Posts: 455
    edited January 2013
    I seem to remember this topic coming up on Typophile and someone suggesting a button to report suspected infringements that would appear every page of MyFonts. Not sure if it would help or hurt but it was suggested.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • Marc Oxborrow
    Marc Oxborrow Posts: 220
    Looks like the font's been pulled. Or at least the URL leads nowhere.
  • Charles Borges de Oliveira
    Charles Borges de Oliveira Posts: 71
    @Jan,thanks!
  • Göran Söderström
    Göran Söderström Posts: 117
    Sara, that’s a big step in the right direction for MyFonts.
  • Sara at MyFonts
    Sara at MyFonts Posts: 3
    We think so too, Göran. Thanks.
  • Matthew Butterick
    Matthew Butterick Posts: 143
    edited January 2013
    Once we've ironed out the glitches in the new process, we plan on taking similar steps with existing foundries.
    Because Monotype Imaging owns MyFonts, there's a potentially large wrinkle here.

    Many fonts in the Monotype + Linotype + Bitstream libraries (all owned by Monotype Imaging) are similar to earlier fonts, and in many cases were expressly designed to be market substitutes for better-known fonts. Arial, Basic Commercial, and Swiss 721 are familiar examples, but the list is long. This fact is beyond dispute.

    And that's not an oblique way of calling them "ripoffs" — with legal protections for type being what they are, that term largely connotes an ethical judgment. The ethical debate has been going on for decades. Centuries? Let's not reopen the whole can of worms. (Those curious can read Mark Simonson's article on the topic, or surf the interwebs.)

    Things change. We're living in the first generation of type design where it's been more profitable for type designers to focus on original designs rather than clones. And that's a result of a) democratization of tools, and the attendant lower costs of production and b) democratization of distribution (via the internet), and the attendant lower costs of sales & marketing. So as a purely ethical matter, to judge yesterday's fonts, and the business decisions behind them, through the lens of today's type market, is sort of pointless.

    Except for one thing — these fonts continue to be sold. By MyFonts. Now. (Arial, Basic Commercial, Swiss 721.) Thus, as a business matter, it is fair to judge these fonts, because they haven't been retired. They're still participating in today's type market, and still competing with newer releases.

    So here's the rub.

    I find it impossible to imagine a policy that MyFonts could adopt against "obvious (or less obvious) ripoffs" that would not immediately disqualify large segments of the Monotype + Linotype + Bitstream libraries.

    I also find it impossible to imagine that MyFonts would remove any of these Monotype Imaging-owned fonts under such a policy, because MyFonts is also owned by Monotype Imaging.

    Therefore, MyFonts has to either a) adopt a policy that is toothless / subjective, or b) arbitrarily exempt these libraries from the new rules.

    So far, it sounds like MyFonts is choosing option (b), since according to Sara at MyFonts, the new policy will apply only to "new foundries" at first, and then "new font submissions" by "existing foundries." This seems to deliberately omit existing fonts by existing foundries, which would include the Monotype Imaging libraries. (Though (a) is also a risk, since it's unknown who is on the "Type Review Board" or what criteria they use to evaluate fonts.)

    Is that a "big step in the right direction"? Hmm. The main reason that any type designer sells fonts through MyFonts (or Fonts.com, or FontShop, etc) is that they hold themselves out as offering a level playing field, despite the potential conflict of interest that comes from having their own libraries to sell.

    I'm not accusing MyFonts of poor sportsmanship nor bad intentions. But regardless of intention, any anti-ripoff policy that is selectively applied will create an uneven playing field. And regardless of intention, any MyFonts policy that disproportionately benefits the Monotype Imaging font libaries is questionable. If MyFonts destabilizes the core assumptions that make it a viable marketplace, I consider that a giant step backward.

    I welcome further clarification from MyFonts.
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,216
    edited January 2013
    I think you’re mistaken on that “first generation” profitability.
    Think Ihlenberg or Klingspor.
    Letraset opened up things for new designs, as did VGC and ITC.
    And so on.

    It seems to me that non-type-designer-owned foundries tend to give their in-house designers conservative direction, but they go outside for fresh ideas from freelancers.

    Attitude, advertising, advocacy and education contribute to changing the market’s taste, not just technology and costs.

    But I agree with you about the history-related double standard.
    I doubt that a review board would nix Myriad as a Frutiger clone.
    Reputation and size have a very real bearing on whether a new work is considered plagiarism, and age (old works that are already established and accepted) also tends to legitimize.
  • Ralf
    Ralf Posts: 170
    Arial, Basic Commercial, and Swiss 721 are familiar examples, but the list is long. This fact is beyond dispute.
    But the fact is also: a look-alike font is not wrong, because it looks like another font. It is wrong when it violates existing and still valid(!) design copyrights.
    For Helvetica for example, Linotype could have claimed a Geschmacksmusterschutz within the European Union, but that is only valid for 25 years.
    So while the trademark Helvetica is still protected today, the design is not. Everyone can built on that design. We could even turn it around and actually say: Dear type designers, go ahead, make new and better versions of all those 20th century classics!

    So, I don't really understand on which grounds MyFonts should act here, concerning the fonts you mentioned. I couln't care less, if someone purchases a license for Helvetica or Swiss721. A corporate design might even specifically require Swiss721. So give it to them. Would we really make things better by banning those fonts? Especially today where the money for these fonts is either spend on linotype.com (→ Monotype), myfonts.com (→ Monotype), fonts.com (→ Monotype).


    What I do care about is, when recent original designs get ripped-off and are offered on MyFonts for a lower price, without naming the source and sharing the income. We all know this happens all the time and we know that MyFonts actually attracts such »type designers«, because it is just so simple to sell your fonts on MyFonts, without having your fonts run through something like the FSI type board, which will judge the quality and authenticity of your design.

    So if MyFonts starts a Type Review Board, I consider this a big step, which will be good for type designers and the MyFonts customers as well. The clones of the early days of desktop publising are not something those companies should be proud of, but I don't think we must beat this dead horse in 2013 …
  • Florian Hardwig
    Florian Hardwig Posts: 273
    Basic Commercial was not expressly designed to be a market substitute. See these comments by Rich Kegler and Dan Reynolds:
    http://www.typophile.com/node/5785#comment-41233
    http://www.typophile.com/node/5785#comment-41239

    BC, Arial and Swiss 721 are all available from FontShop, too – just saying.

    In my work I tend to avoid these old and boring fonts anyway. It is so much more interesting and rewarding to work with typefaces by contemporaries.
  • Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer
    Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer Posts: 157
    Helvetica an original design? Yeah, right…
  • Matthew Butterick
    Matthew Butterick Posts: 143
    edited February 2013
    Adam, if MyFonts is concerned primarily with "infringement of intellectual property" as a legal issue rather than "obvious (or less obvious) ripoffs" as an ethical issue, then fine. In that case, my concern about the Monotype Imaging libraries is largely moot. (BTW I wasn't suggesting that there are any lingering legal disputes between the former owners of these libraries. Obviously a company can't maintain a legal dispute against itself.)

    But that leaves my other concern: that the new policies are relatively toothless. As a type designer with fonts on MyFonts, the policies you describe seem basically equivalent to the existing legal obligations of MyFonts to protect my intellectual property, including US laws pertaining to removal of infringing works after notification. (I'm speaking only for myself here & this is not legal advice.)

    While I'm glad MyFonts takes those obligations seriously, I don't see what the Type Review Board adds to the picture. Again, I'm not accusing MyFonts of poor sportsmanship. I like MyFonts. I like doing business with MyFonts. But "obeying the law" is a service MyFonts is already supposed to be providing for its share of my royalties.
  • Ralf
    Ralf Posts: 170
    if MyFonts is concerned primarily with "infringement of intellectual property" as a legal issue rather than "obvious (or less obvious) ripoffs" as an ethical issue, then fine.
    Aren't the two connected? If a design becomes public domain after a certain amount of time, where does the “ethical issue” even come from? As Florian said: the main argument against re-drawn classics is probably that they are boring nowadays.
    But if the designs aren't protected anymore and the cases settled, what's the ground for “ethical issues” today?
  • Stuart Sandler
    Stuart Sandler Posts: 363
    Separately, how does the MyFonts panel feel about font 'gesture' cribbing? That is to say, one takes a copy of an existing font, runs it through a distressing filter and calls it a new creation? There would be no legal case to say the outlines were even close to identical, however there would be no question to customers that the two fonts are the same sharing the same glyph core shape and/or vertical placement to the baseline.
  • George Thomas
    George Thomas Posts: 648
    There would be no legal case to say the outlines were even close to identical,
    Not identical, true; I think infringement of the law would be due to use of the original unmodified outlines as a source regardless of the finished product.

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