Bugazoo letterbat

Vasil Stanev

Thomas Phinney said:

Congratulations!

For what? Is there any protection at all at MyFonts?? It took them 3 hours to pirate it and share on vkontakte. I do not know nothing anymore.

Arthur Reinders Folmer

Vasil Stanev said:

For what? Is there any protection at all at MyFonts?? It took them 3 hours to pirate it and share on vkontakte. I do not know nothing anymore.

That sucks, are those the real files? And did it come from a sale (if so, then it's surely traceable)

What's MyFonts take on it?

Ray Larabie

I'm pretty certain these pirate sites grab them from the web preview on MyFonts and have been doing it for several years. The ripped fonts show up on those sites quickly after they're released on MyFonts. I often delay my MyFonts releases about a year so it's pretty obvious to me where they're getting them from. They often show up before I've made any sales so almost certainly web rips. I don't think they're getting them from Fonts.com or Fontspring as I've have exclusive releases on both and they never got picked up by these sites.

Vasil Stanev

I have had no sales of this particular font. MF stated about the theft of the previous font that it is a big problem and whatever. Yes, it is. And it's out now. I was amazed chiefly by the speed with which it had been done, the very same day. 

Vasil Stanev

Arthur Reinders Folmer said:

Vasil Stanev said:

For what? Is there any protection at all at MyFonts?? It took them 3 hours to pirate it and share on vkontakte. I do not know nothing anymore.

That sucks, are those the real files? And did it come from a sale (if so, then it's surely traceable)

What's MyFonts take on it?

 No, it's a folder of 10 MB that contains 2 files of about 100K. Guess what slipped under the antivirus.

I do not know how such sites make their cash, is it spyware, is it ransomware, is it 1 ruble per a thousand clicks, is it commercial, I do not know. But I really have lost my steam about the whole matter with typography, truth be told.
Not to mention the flak I have been getting from haters both inside and outside of typography, the people that think fonts are developed by an algorithm, the empty likes on social media, and so on. I think I'should really take a break before some muzhik decides to get crazy mad because he got the thing for free and I didn't break my legs running to congratulate him via e-mail. No whining, stiff upper lip etc.

Steve Gardner

@Vasil Stanev, is it possible the pirate site got your font from Local Fonts?  I assume you listed it there whilst MyFonts were reviewing your foundry, since the publication date is 30th September, 2017.

It's lovely work, by the way.  Some of them are incredibly imaginative.  Good luck.

ETA: VK has a copyright takedown process.  It's requires a bit of patience (and a VK account, if you don't already have one).  If you're inclined to do it, it might be worth reading the advice posted at Artistic License.

Arthur Reinders Folmer

Many of those "downloads" online are like the rest of the internet, 85-90% is fake to pull some someone in a download and install all kinds of muck on their machine. According to some google searches I could already download my unreleased typefaces from those sites just due to some clever SEO-ing.

But yeah, ripping is still done. Makes it easy to spot a downloader instead of a buyer when it's used through.

Ray Larabie

People tape music off the radio, records and CDs. They rip YouTube audio and record from streaming services. They torrent, they rent, rip and return. They buy used CDs, rip the audio and sell them again. And people still make music.

As for lack of social media response, you should lower your expectations to approximately zero. Nobody cares about fonts enough to significantly retweet or share unless it's about Comic Sans or Papyrus or tied to a celebrity or news event. Expect 2 or 3 retweets and be pleased if you get more than 5. Some things in this world don't attract retweets. I can tell a joke on my other Twitter account and it gets hundreds of retweets but new font releases on my business account are generally are met with silence. It's not impossible to get a font tweet to go "viral" but you'll need to apply some social media strategy if you want to go down that road. But even then, someone's quip about Comic Sans will still get hundreds more retweets. Don't expect someone to see a tweet about a font and automatically hit the retweet button. Even with free fonts or price drop announcements, designers might grab the font for themselves but have no motivation to share that discovery with other designers. Retweets are mysterious and elusive. There's an identity aspect to retweets. People consciously or unconsciously use them to tell people who they are in their own timelines. Typeface release announcements don't naturally lend themselves to that sort of thing but perhaps with enough social media savvy, they can be engineers to be more RTworthy.

As for flak: don't ask for critiques here. Asking questions is fine but when you show your work here, someone's always going to disagree and you'll end up second guessing yourself and never getting any work done. When I want feedback, I get it from graphic designers who aren't type designers or non-designer folks. I think it's okay for students...true beginners to ask for critiques here but if you're trying to do type design as a job, it's unprofessional to ask the general public to help you design your typeface. You don't see professional type designers asking for critiques here. Advice and help with technical aspects or portions of a design? That's fine. Help actually designing the entire typeface? I don't think it's helpful or efficient. If you have a colleague that you can turn to for help and also offer help to, then that's helpful. That colleague will learn what your tastes are and you'll learn their tastes and how to interpret their criticism.

Getting critiques online is like design by committee: it sucks. Everyone hates working like that. I need to deal with a small team with one clear leader or I can't take the criticism seriously. It's not a matter of me not being able to handle the criticism; I honestly don't know how to interpret multiple streams of criticism from people I've never met. Although sometimes a committee led by a strong willed art director can be okay. When you post a critique here, there's no art director to tell you which criticisms are right and wrong. There's nobody to keep a tight focus and style direction.

Vasil Stanev

Mr. Larabie, allow me to clarify what seems to be a misunderstood comment.

I used social media to promote the font for obvious reasons, and at the advice of friends who use it so professionally. I am forced to agree with your experience. The whole idea of my post is to understand what new strategy to use since posting on MF seems to lead to quick theft, and MF is a monopoly as Monotype is. I am of course not the only one posting their stuff there, either smarter designers use smarter techniques to make money with typography or I have had incredibly bad luck. I see no use going the same road a third time whith my third font, there must be a smarter way.

 Considering flak, it is not on Typedrawers at all, quite the opposite. TD is one of the most civil places I have ever posted on. I was talking about other folks. They know who they are, and I will stop here because I have had quite enough of their constantly triggered sensibilities. 

Considering design by cometee and asking random strangers if they like the design, I am well aware of that. I always considered asking for opinion on the internet to be blindfolded at a full stadium and asking people where your seat is. And you do occasionally get hit by some of these folks. It's not the stadium that's at fault.

Thomas Phinney

Vassil,

Making your font available in any way at all, including as a web font for display purposes on a web site, leads to quick theft. Routes that offer it for sale without making the font available to non-purchasers just mean the theft will be slower to start, but will not prevent it.

I sincerely recommend just accepting that some piracy will happen (as a cost of doing business) as a route to maintaining both your professional sanity and your focus on more useful activities.

This does not mean you have to accept every possible form of piracy and ignore it! There is certainly a range of options for when to “pick your battles.” But trying to prevent/avoid any and all piracy of your fonts is doomed to failure. Exposing fonts as web fonts is pretty much a requirement for showing the fonts, if you want to offer them at retail. It is not piracy-proof. That is just a reality of the font business today.

Vasil Stanev

Thank you all for your comments and I am sorry if I sounded harsh under the circumstances.
Vkontakte authorities have been alerted and the uploader openly confronted. There has been an unexpected development, however. Some friend I did not know I had has done a short presentation of the font on YouTube. You can find it by searching for "Etymonster" there. He (I am asuming it's a male Mandarin name) has linked to MF. I took care to write an extensive comment in which I describe the dangers of piracy and support this with white hat hacking links that show how easy it is to do irreparable damage to your personal files if you play the free download game. Some of this material was new to me (I researched in the aftermath of the theft) and perhaps will be of interest to fellow board members, others yet may have something to contribute to the topic. Educating the pirates will perhaps be a better strategy than antagonizing them. We are all human.

Samuil Simonov

@Vasil Stanev A font as unique as yours should be an easy target to defend in court should anyone use it commercially. There was a thread on this very forum that showed that even in Russia font piracy is swiftly punished.

Vasil Stanev

I wrote to all sites I could find and the download buttons have been incapacitated almost everywhere, and the vkontakte link - removed completely. But heads up! My font is just one of many that get stolen on a daily basis. I saw many more new releases, and the list updates daily.
Sorry for lifting the topic. On to new fonts for me.

Thomas Phinney

Glad to hear you had success killing the downloads!

Just to be clear, I was not meaning to suggest that you were not in the morally righteous position. Just that trying to stop all piracy of your fonts is a never-ending activity, and can become a huge investment of time, distracting from, well, more enjoyable and/or productive activities.

Vasil Stanev

It comes with the territory.