New Darden Studio eula

JoyceKetterer

it took a lot longer than we planned (last atypi I said "a few months") but we're finally live with the new eula.

The documents were actually written last December but we waited to post them till we could make some changes to the site.  We're also publicly displaying three addenda documents and the corresponding pricing  (though purchases of addenda still need to go through our office.)

Link : http://dardenstudio.com/license/eula

Mike Wenzloff

What does "rasterized vector" mean? A plain reading would indicate that a print pdf could not contain the vector font information. 

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Thanks for posting this.

How does "If you want to send your client a file that permits the client to edit, alter, enhance or modify the Font Software, your client will need to purchase its own license to use the Font Software" jibe with "You are prohibited from decompiling or disassembling the Font Software for the purpose of converting, porting, adapting or modifying it in any manner"? I worry that a client will be made to buy its own license with the intent of modifying the font, only to then realize it's not allowed.

JoyceKetterer

@Hrant H. Papazian. I'm not going to engage on your bugaboo.  You're just inventing a question so you can polish your sword stump.  Modifying isn't allowed and that's clear.  Clients have plenty of other reasons to license a font 

Adam Jagosz

Why does everyone here automatically hate Hrant?

Actually, I think this should be
"If you want to send your client a file that permits the client to edit, alter, enhance or modify the file using the Font Software, ..." 

JoyceKetterer

@Adam Jagosz I don't hate Hrant.  We're friends.  That said, I do tend to shut off my brain when he talks about this topic. 

I stand corrected.  I think Hrant has caught a drafting error.  I will make sure to do something about it quickly.

Adam Jagosz

I didn't mean 'hate' hate. Just that people tend to... shut off at him because of how he is

JoyceKetterer

then you answered your own question.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

@Adam Jagosz Joyce is too strong to hate a dissenter. However –and as her own correction arguably exposes– she can apparently be too hasty in dismissing a thought based on a previous related disagreement. But it's merely related, because:

@JoyceKetterer I'm not expecting to change your mind about the untenability of the no-mod clause, and I honestly don't want to use your post to drive my agenda; it's that I feel that wording in 1.c does really give false hope to those not rigorously paying attention. But I guess you meant to say a file made with the font, not the font itself.

Ray Larabie

I read this imagining myself wanting to use a typeface to incorporate into a logo. In the top left paragraph I'm told that I can use the typeface to create a logo. In section 1c, I learn that it needs to be converted to outlines. Section 1d tells me that the typeface can't actually be used for a logo since it may not be used on clothing. A logo will certainly make its way to a t-shirt at some point and it will likely be the main item on the garment.

Also, section 1D refers to the font software being used on clothing which seems wrong. You don't use font software on clothing...at least not for another decade.

JoyceKetterer

@Ray Larabie I think we need to clarify that logo use is not "integral" as outlined in section 1d.  We thought that by saying that logo use is permitted it's clear that governs over any other clause but you're the second person to not understand that recently.  As far as needing to convert the logo to outlines I've never known a customer to mind.  People tend to want to render logos as images, in my experience.  And, the governing principle of our EULA is that embedding requires additional licensing.

Ray Larabie

The outline part is fine. Back to 1d...

Say I'm an agency and I'm using this typeface for a brand. From reading this, I'd feel like I'm restricted from creating a slogan t-shirt. It would be as if Mazda weren't allowed to make a Zoom Zoom or Summer Sale shirt. That's how it reads to me. And it's fine if that type of use is restricted but there seems to be no addendum to deal with it. It seems to be telling me it can't be done.

Johannes Neumeier

Since the Web addendum explicitly mentions @font-face, be aware that you can also serve webfonts via the FontFace API - maybe just word it as Font Face technology or something more implementation independent.
Also section A3 talks about CORS - if you are serious about licensees implementing this help needs to be provided; I dare say even your average web dev will scratch their heads at first, let alone designers or clients.

JoyceKetterer

hey all.  I forgot to say that about a week after your thoughtful feedback here we incorporated some of the suggestions.  

Also, at the beginning of this month we went live with a massive rewrite of the web addendum (and a parallel but more minor rewrite to the app addendum).  The intent remains the same but we are now better capturing the technology of web design.

Additionally, we made some minor changes to the primary EULA - most notably 1.i. - where we clarify our existing policy that addenda can only be issued to the owner of the brand which is embarking on the use.  Previously, the EULA had stated that an addendum was needed for "this license" which would not be true if "this" was a license held by the web developer.  Since we do make that clear when we do sales of addenda, as a practical matter, this clarification is for infridgers reading the license after the fact so that it is clear who is responsible to us.  Anyone who has ever done a license enforcement action will know that this is a major sticking point because the client and contractor can each claim that the other is responsible and force you to to court.  

I'm always interested in your feedback though I admit we're getting a bit tired of working on the EULA and sincerely hope nothing you say triggers more rewrites. 

@Adam Twardoch  - I'm looking forward to your thoughts as well

JoyceKetterer

@Johannes Neumeier you will note that we kept the CORES clause in the web addendum.  I ran your concerns by our team and we decided that it didn't warrant a change.  We have always taken measures to make the self hosted web embedding addendum a business grade and not consumer grade product.  As such, it is reasonable to expect them to learn how to meet our requirements.  If they ask us questions we will do our best to point them to resources but we will not provide direct support because that just isn't feasible or cost effective for us.  If this requirement makes self hosting undesirable to them then it was never a reasonable option anyway and they are better off using a third party hoster (which is an option for our fonts).  

Johannes Neumeier

@JoyceKetterer Fair enough. I guess the reason I pointed it out is because it's a requirement that most people won't follow up with even if obligated to by the EULA, let alone do people know how to do it. I send you a pm to illustrate the point.

JoyceKetterer

@Johannes Neumeier You're not wrong. You probably know that my usual tendency is to hate on unenforceable rules.  This feels a little bit different. 

The reason to have this even if most people don't follow it and  - even if we aren't going to treat lack of following it harshly - is because it IS best practice.  Furthermore, we want self hosting to feel like a big deal when people contemplate it.  We want the vast majority of customers to think twice before self hosting.  It is higher risk.  Also, both for that reason and because pricing to labor on our end doesn't scale down well,  we would prefer that the consumer grade people not do it.  That also means that the business grade companies that do it are the sort who need to be more security conscious generally.  

For now most people don't use CORS but we are not above being aspirational in our business practices and you can look at this that way.  

Johannes Neumeier

Okay, I totally see how it makes business sense to use that clause to nudge the offering one way or another in terms of potential customers.

Thanks for elaborating in such detail, always good to know not just the what but the why and how you arrived at certain terms.

Thierry Blancpain

@JoyceKetterer I hope this is not too off-topic, but I’m wondering: is any of your type families not available on VK / Torrent sites / etc. easily findable through a quick search?

I’m asking because my thoughts have always been that people can download fonts in easier ways than going through source code, anyway, so there’s very little reason to require htaccess setups and other things.

JoyceKetterer

@Thierry Blancpain  Of course our fonts are easily pirated.  I keep trying to say this in an offhand way and I can see now that I just need to spell it out.

It is a fundamental truth that we can not stop bad actors from stealing our fonts.  It is equally a fundamental truth that it is worth our effort to help well meaning people who start of from the position of trying to license fonts properly to be more aware.

Therefore, we don't require licensees to take security measures to protect their licensed fonts as a means to limit piracy.  We do so as a means to increase awareness among those associated with the licensee (staff, contractors, etc) that fonts are valuable commodities that should be treated carefully.  Remember that a lot of people only understand they need to get a license and don't understand that continued maintenance that might be required. 

We see a direct correlation (I don't have enough data to prove causation) between licensees with bad font license management culture and license infringement.  The inverse also seems to be true based on the high percentage of licensees who go through a license enforcement with us and then make additional large license purchases.  

Therefore, if we use the opportunity presented by the interactions we have with licensees to make them more thoughtful and respectful of fonts then it seems likely to be useful to us over time.  

JoyceKetterer

I just reread my last post and I can see that the penultimate paragraph may be a bit confusing.  My choice of wording "bad font license management culture" is misleading.  "Bad" implies intent or at least violating behavior and that's not what I'm getting at.  I'm not sure what word makes sense because "sloppy" and "careless" also don't really capture what I'm talking about.  Maybe "sub-optimal"...

What I'm thinking of is types of use which are not strictly wrong or violating but which don't treat fonts with care. What we've been discussing is a good example.  Two other good ones are companies with large licensees that don't have a font server, or that don't have a style guide.  There's nothing strictly wrong with either of these but they are opening themselves up to more human error that way.  I talk about this a lot in the lecture I did for extenis that @Katy Mawhood  posted in another thread.

The foundational problem in licensing fonts is that most customers don't understand that they don't function like other software.  When I talked about this in my lecture someone actually interrupted me to say "why don't you push consent of the EULA on installation?"  You can't hear him in the recording but you can hear my answer "we literally aren't able to." This is how basic the lack of understanding is among our client base - that a person who knows to go to a day of lectures on font license management doesn't know the limitation of installation.

Most software has strong DRM and fonts do not.  This allows licensees of most software to ignore the EULA and trust they can't violate it without purposely cracking the software.  WIth fonts that's so completely not true that we can't even control the number of copies they make.  And the problem here is that people either don't know that or don't think about it when they are using the fonts.

Add to that the fact that a great number of people think fonts are not a big deal and have no idea how much money their employer could be on the hook for if they make a mistake with the fonts.

So, as licensors of fonts we are constantly having to navigate a cultural problem.  Therefore, whenever we can reinforce the idea that fonts are valuable and need to be treated with care then we do.