MyFonts: Web, Epub, Server etcª license business – worth doing?

Andreas Stötzner

Is it worth the trouble of doing the additional contracting work?
Does it pay off reasonably?
– Any known legal issues?

Any thoughts appreciated!

Christian Thalmann

Hi Andreas,

on MyFonts, the only thing you have to do is to sign an agreement that you're willing to offer these licenses. The rest is handled on the MyFonts side.  Whether or not the payoff is «reasonable», I guess you lose nothing by offering those licenses as opposed to not doing it.

Georg Seifert

I'm still don't offer webfonts as that would mean that I let go of my 66% cut. Enabling webfonts means signing a new contract with 50%.

KP Mawhood

Based on anecdotal evidence it helps if the options are available, even if you list them as $0.00 – otherwise the customer:

1) Must read EULA with fine-tooth comb;
2) Rejects font choice, due to limited usage;
3) May use fonts for unlicensed usage.

Option two, also applies if the cost is too high.

Option three, relates to non-explicit terms and/or customer assumptions. Font licensing is not well understood by many designers, small organizations and/or small publishers.

Andreas Stötzner

Georg Seifert said:

I'm still don't offer webfonts as that would mean that I let go of my 66% cut. Enabling webfonts means signing a new contract with 50%.

HAaH! as if I would have been smelling something. – Since I’m also on the lucky 66% side I’ll keep my hands in my pockets.
Thanks all for commenting.

Thierry Blancpain

It’s easy for me to say as we don’t sell anywhere but our own site, and it might be a bitter pill to swallow, but not offering web fonts might cost you quite a bit more than those 16%.

Florian Hardwig

What Thierry said:

fonts need to be available as webfonts to be eligible to appear in the Recent Fonts [“What’s New”] section. […] only font families that […]  are enabled as webfonts will be eligible for inclusion on the Hot New Fonts list. — https://foundry.myfonts.com/handbook/#marketing-and-promotion

Michael Jarboe

@Katy Mawhood, do think that's a noted concern for foundries? I'm curious then why so many foundries only list or put forward basic licenses (desktop, web, maybe app). It seems details and information on other licenses such as broadcast, OEM, enterprise, server are never very prominent.

James Puckett

It seems details and information on other licenses such as broadcast, OEM, enterprise, server are never very prominent.

Because those other license types are negotiated on a case-by-case basis, and anyone who buy those licenses knows this.

Miles Newlyn

James Puckett said:

It seems details and information on other licenses such as broadcast, OEM, enterprise, server are never very prominent.

Because those other license types are negotiated on a case-by-case basis, and anyone who buy those licenses knows this.

things are becoming more transparent/upfront. Typotheque does broadcast, corporate, server and embedding 'in cart', I think a few other do too. I'm working on this but haven't decided on what to do yet.

Stuart Sandler

After YEARS of negotiating broadcast, OEM and enterprise licenses, there is no way to create a standardized rate sheet as some clients will run away from the cost and others get a sweet discount.

Keep in mind when litigating licensing infringements, you can only ask for what you've BEEN PAID on licenses in the past, so there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all rate sheet.

KP Mawhood

@Michael Jarboe I think there's a lot of assumptions on customer's license knowledge, with potential loss of profit for foundries. Given that I'm a "knowledge-holder" on fonts in my organization – and our third-parties – feel free to educate me. I'm making the effort to tell you what I see, because my roots are in this community. But, it's anecdotal and I admit that.

Andreas Stötzner

Florian Hardwig said:

What Thierry said:

fonts need to be available as webfonts to be eligible to appear in the Recent Fonts [“What’s New”] section. […] only font families that […]  are enabled as webfonts will be eligible for inclusion on the Hot New Fonts list. — https://foundry.myfonts.com/handbook/#marketing-and-promotion

I didn’t know that. Since when does this rule apply? – I think this is highly unfair. Sort of blackmailing. And so obvious …

Florian Hardwig

I don’t know when this rule was introduced, but it’s been quite a while. I agree that it’s unfair (and unwise – not all fonts are meant to be used on the Web).

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

I'm still kicking myself for not signing up with MyFonts back when it was 80%...

JoyceKetterer

we're in a similar situation to @Thierry Blancpain since our only "resellers" offer specific services we can't - TypeKit and Fontstand.  Even so, I think that it may be risky for anyone to not offer some addenda. 

@James Puckett I'm not sure what you mean by each license needing to be negotiated individually.  That's so costly in time and legal fees.  We have standard addendum documents for everything we've done before - so that amounts to all the most common scenarios and a few idiosyncratic ones.  

@Stuart Sandler As far as having a standard pricing model for different kinds of amendments goes it's been fairly easy for us to do so as long as we view each part separately.  Customers seem to appreciate the fact there are preexisting tables we refer to because it feels more fair.  We can always add discounts for larger and more complicated licensing scenarios if it seems appropriate.  If we literally took each one as it came the labor would be prohibitive.  Maybe we loose a few sales here and there because our prices seem too high to some (but we would anyway) and maybe we occasionally leave some money on the table but isn't that also always true?  We're working on volume to the extent possible.

For our web embedding we've been very happy letting the more consumer grade customers go to TypeKit so that we only deal directly with the larger companies that have an aversion to hosted fonts.  

@Georg Seifert I can't speak to myfonts considerations like income percentage but I would be cautious about not having any licensing for the more common addenda like web and app. As Stuart pointed out, you can only get a settlement in court for things you're invoiced (and been paid for) before.  But on a more day to day basis that means that if you see a violation and want to deal with it - even amicably by converting it to a sale - you need to already have an instrument for doing so.  And be sure that you will see violations with any moderately successful font that has standard terms - it's just the nature of the beast.  In other words, if you don't offer web embedding you can be sure that some people will just self host with @fontface (which, btw, a lot of them would have done even if you do offer it because people still just assume they can if the file doesn't stop them).  When that happens, if you don't have a means to license it, you're faced with simply ignoring the use or forcing them to cease - in both cases loosing money.  Is it possible with myfonts to state in your EULA that all addenda must be purchases directly from you?  That way you do offer addenda but you don't have to loose 16%.

Georg Seifert

Thanks for the tip.