Getty Images bought Veer – fonts disappear

KP Mawhood · April 2016

What is the legal framework for fonts that have no license vendor? Any speculation why Getty has not migrated the fonts to a new vendor? This happened March 31, 2016 – I am a bit slow to post it.

Customer support:
Veer was our competitor (our parent company Getty Images bought Veer from its parent company Corbis)… All the content on Veer is now gone (everything on Veer, including the fonts). I am not sure where you would source this particular font you are looking for…

FYI any designers who have veer fonts – there may not have been any notification. The type designer I spoke to seemed quite surprised (about 2 weeks ago):

I wish I had some better information for you, but I've only just learned of the Veer shutdown. I've spoken with the fellow who I made the font with, and he's currently trying to bring it over to Fontspring.com

James Puckett · April 2016

What is the legal framework for fonts that have no license vendor?

That’s up to the owners of the fonts. All they have to do is sign a contract with a new vendor.

Any speculation why Getty has not migrated the fonts to a new vendor?

Getty can’t just migrate the fonts to a new vendor. These aren’t baseball contracts that can be sold and traded. Technically Getty could have sold Veer and the buyer would get anyone whose old contract was with Veer and not Corbis. But Veer was effectively dead—the collection and site hadn’t been updated in years. And the old Veer contracts didn’t cover contemporary licenses for web, application, and ebook use. So the old contracts would all have needed to be renegotiated anyway, making Veer next to worthless to Monotype, the only likely buyer. Selling it probably wouldn’t have covered the legal expenses.

FYI any designers who have veer fonts – there may not have been any notification.

The sale and shutdown were announced publicly and Veer sent out emails to the addresses used for all other business communication. I’m pretty sure they even sent me letters in the mail. Anyone who didn’t get the memo wasn’t paying attention. Probably because nobody was making money from Veer anyway.

Mark Simonson · April 2016

I got several emails about it. Basically, as a font supplier, when the Veer site shuts down, I am released from any contractual obligations with Veer. To make up the loss in income, I may have to see if any of my neighbors need their lawns mowed.

Stephen Coles · April 2016

I'm curious, Mark. How soon after the sale to Getty did you experience these meager sales? Or was it earlier that sales dropped from Veer's former glory?

Mark Simonson · April 2016

I'm not sure without going back and checking. But the first big drop was when Corbis bought it and they pulled the plug on all the physical marketing material mailings. At that point, it settled at around a half of what it had been. It dropped again around 2014, although I don't remember why. By the time of the Getty deal, it was down to beer money levels (and I don't drink that much beer).