Online shops and language

KP Mawhood

 @Katy Mawhood what do you think?

A EULA system of discrete physical parts that are assembled together? Seems appropriate. Perhaps host each version update GitHub, linked to a dynamic live feed? Talmud for the modern era. It's a decision for type designers, foundries and vendors.

In all seriousness, I have misread EULA permissions as more restrictive or more permissive on more than one occasion. Any consistency in language or glossary terms is massively helpful. It's difficult to maintain awareness of the latest EULA updates when you're working across multiple foundries / vendors. Reading, tracking and re-reading EULAs is only a small subset of my job. 

Once the first-proofs are received from the typesetter, the font is unlikely to change. But, the limitation on distribution in specific titles – based on changing permissions – is frustrating to track and inconsistent for users. The relabeling of fonts for a new title edition, in light of a specific EULA update or our own library permissions, is an expensive process. And breaking the visual identity of a series design – to substitute with a more permissively licensed font – or equally darting in fonts for a single character in a word – because the text design's base font doesn't cater for "LATIN SMALL LETTER H WITH DOT BELOW" – is truly heartbreaking. 

This is the reality to respect font intellectual property in our publishing. We want to do the right thing. And I'm working on many initiatives to educate, to reach out to different departments / divisions / locations, and to build workflows that are considerate of best practice approaches. But, sometimes the budget just isn't there.

Any consistency and any means to notify us of EULA updates really helps. 

yanone

I’ve followed this thread a bit, but don’t understand the goal.

Some of you are working on an overview of foundry’s licenses, okay.

But is the goal to simply publish this overview or is the goal to create a somewhat unified set of licenses and encourage foundries to use them?

KP Mawhood

The goal, as I understand it, is to create some means for end-users to better anticipate, interpret and comply with licensing permissions.

Font misuse occurs, the problem is decades old. Vendors differ in their EULAs, as a reflection of their business and values. How can we improve compliance?

Tiffany Wardle

@Katy Mawhood Agree. Something interactive and visual (icons +/- words) which people can quickly ascertain:

1. Basic EULA OR Expanded EULA
2. Allowed or NOT allowed features

FWIW I think most people are more interested in the basic EULA. And I'd always suggest that once something goes into extended licensing they'd do best to get in touch with the foundry. 

And I think it must be *easily* updatable by foundries themselves (voluntary participation) or at least voluntarily send info to be updated. 

@yanone For me I don't feel that all foundries should/would/could use the same EULA. But I do think a single location for potential users to see and compare would be extremely helpful.

Stuart Sandler

I also look at this exercise firstly as finding the most common ground that virtually all EULAs agree on, things like no modifications, governing law (location non-specific), indemnification, definition of ownership, etc in the hopes this can serve as a universal base for what could become the springboard to where variations begin.

Beyond that, I think that is where we can start to define different silos of variation and categorize them accordingly.

I also believe this can be language agnostic if the intent of each term is what is captured and measured.

KP Mawhood

I attended the Glyphs Python workshop the last 2 days (thanks @Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer), great training with the added spice of good food for thought.

These types of tools gain utility through their universal application. Asking foundries to update without an incentive / no current audience is perhaps an unreasonable request, or may not have a strong uptake. But most foundries have an up-to-date EULA online. 

• Question: With foundry permission, we can pull some data straight out of the website, e.g. web-scraping. It doesn't affect the source, it just creates a pseudo-live link to their EULA. Do you think that foundries would be willing to agree to this, under their terms? 

If it is possible – under agreed terms – to create a single self-updating repository of EULAs, this would be a massive first step. The next step could be to agree a means of interpretation… or not.

Tiffany Wardle de Sousa said: FWIW I think most people are more interested in the basic EULA. And I'd always suggest that once something goes into extended licensing they'd do best to get in touch with the foundry. 

I agree completely.

Stuart Sandler said: I also look at this exercise firstly as finding the most common ground that virtually all EULAs agree on… things like no modifications, governing law (location non-specific), indemnification, definition of ownership, etc in the hopes this can serve as a universal base for what could become the springboard to where variations begin.

Beyond that, I think that is where we can start to define different silos of variation and categorize them accordingly.

Who is the intended audience for the results of the exercise / universal base?

• Font Professionals: It would be a great resource, definitely.
  
• End Users: Despite good intentions, the exercise could easily mislead an end user into non-compliance. For instance, with basic licenses that only permit non-commercial use.

Ray Larabie

Here's a visual guide I used to include with my old license agreement. I don't use it anymore because my license terms changed significantly a few years ago.

Deleted Account

Welcome as well,

"Who is the intended audience for the results of the exercise / universal base?"

• Font Professionals: It would be a great resource, definitely.
  
• End Users: Despite good intentions, the exercise could easily mislead..."

I would add font format owners to your audience, as the only seriously-effective-as-possible forward-moving solution is a combination of standard permissions in the font format, and applications that bring digital rights managment of fonts up to modern requirements. 

Most other things that are important about fonts have found their way into opentype, as options the foundry can include for automatic interpretation and presentation of one-or-another kind of digital data. But this, the permissions for use granted to the user, is a curious and obvious omission, only provided as almost all text, almost no code. 

The last time programmed permissions was tried, one set of foundry lawyers is said to have banned it from the standard for fear that the textual representation of the Eula and the coded representation of the Eula would not match, making the fonts free, or something.

Maybe, times have changed, and the programatic generation of licensing agreements has advanced there. Before anyone gets all wobbly on it, this is not to say that all Eula for all users for all fonts can be programmed, that's for sure. But I've noticed over time, that really complex internal type industry tools, objects and processes, became standard parts of fonts-for-users over time, to make things better.

Someone might argue about the definition of better so I will give you one example. Used to be if you wanted to render a digital glyph, you put down impressionable material for each letter on a pool table-sized vacuum top numerically-controlled cutting device, fed a paper tape font into its processesor to cut letters in film that were scanned at high resolution, and then scaled down and edited at several sizes by hand, before being put on magnetic tape and stored in a typesetter for when the user typed a letter to show up on a plate to be inked and printed for you to see. 

That now fits in a watch, and takes 'paper tape' type from all over the planet, not because no one asked stupid questions about type, but because smart people asked stupid questions about type. And how they are allowed to use it, is one of the most commonly asked stupid questions, about type, by smart people, in my opinion. It took ten years (1975-1985), to get the software together to make the type possible, and then ten more (1995) to make the type happen somewhere else, and twenty more for the watch to be possible.

And I understand that there was a lot more interest in getting font rendering small, fast and universal over that 40 years. Now that it is though, the international legal, economic, and cultural issues are built up, and there must be an electronically viable alternative for publishing the right to add or modify locally, where that is of cultural importance, like Gaiji, and all kinds of font uses that need legalization.

Finally, to make an ongoing story shorter — if there is one reason this complex legal mechanism stays in the hands of the foundries, who are now compelled to each make their own legal programs and applets, then it will be because of lawyers meddling with our font format, preventing us from making a global framework to solve their problems... (or, obviously, because of google's dislike for commerce in type altogether). Nothing serious though should stop it, or at least not, thinking that type designers make fonts too complex for programmatic Eula creation and reference, should stop it.

KP Mawhood

Super clear explanatory text:
https://www.fontfont.com/licensing-eula

Just a shame it isn't matched by the 'App+' EULA.
https://www.fontfont.com/licensing-app

JoyceKetterer

In my experience independent foundries are independent for a reason.  It's true, as many have said here, that the EULA is a primary statement of the values of the foundry.  I've always believed these are the reasons was why efforts at a universal EULA tend to fail.  

Also, on a practical level, we need to be able to make changes to our EULA as we identify needs on the ground.  So, waiting for a governing body or committee to correct an error or loophole or simply to respond to new technology needs isn't workable.  

That said, I do think the idea of some sort of universal tool for understanding the various EULAs is a good idea.  It is in all our benefit for the EULAs to be as understood by users as possible.

But, keep in mind that almost no one reads these things because the entire rest of the software industry has trained them that they don't have to.  So, there are many ways in which this is a loosing battle.  

Ray Larabie

A possible solution to getting people to read a EULA is to not make them read it. Rather that trying to craft a visual guide or the ultimate explanation, we could present the user with an automated online assistant. Or what they used to call a wizard. That way the user who has a specific need doesn't have to wade through irrelevant information.

---

How do you want to do with these fonts?

(user can type a keyword or choose from a list)

> game

Is it a... (radio button list)
board game
card game
computer game/app

(user selects computer game)

Is the font embedded in the game or a static graphic? (radio buttons)

 what's embedded?

(embedding explained)


Is the font embedded in the game?

> no

How many other developers will have the font installed when they're working

> 3

The regular desktop license is what you need. And you're covered for up to 5 users.

---

At the end you'd include some sort of "But hey, I'm not a lawyer. Make sure to check the actual agreement carefully."

Which they probably won't but I assume it's required.

This would require a complex branching script and a smart parser. The EULA preferences could be encoded in the URL like ?refby=$Yh!EwWmMfO... Foundries would have a tool to create the encoded link. The entire system would be localized for a bunch of languages. I have no idea how feasible this automated online assistant would be to create. But if it existed, it could help customers all around the world understand obtuse English EULAs