Unlimited use license - help!

Jonny Gibson
Jonny Gibson Posts: 7
in Type Business
Hi everyone, I've been approached by a fairly large, global company. They are after an 'unlimited use' license for one of my type families - for use across web, mobile apps, console games, print, ads... the works!

I'm just a one man operation, and this is the first time i've had to deal with anything like this.
I'm not really sure how to price this or even how to create the license itself. I have standard EULA's but nothing that covers this kind of scale.

Any advice or direction would be really appreciated!
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Comments

  • James Puckett
    James Puckett Posts: 1,995
    edited April 2018
    It might be best to hire a lawyer with experience negotiating font licenses. Give Frank Martinez a call, he’s the go-to guy for fonts. His firm used to have a web site that could automatically calculate rates based on past sales but I can’t remember the URL. http://www.martinezgroup.com
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • Chris Lozos
    Chris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    Saul is busy ;-)
  • Jonny Gibson
    Jonny Gibson Posts: 7
    James Puckett said:
    It might be best to hire a lawyer with experience negotiating font licenses. Give Frank Martinez a call, he’s the go-to guy for fonts. His firm used to have a web site that could automatically calculate rates based on past sales but I can’t remember the URL. http://www.martinezgroup.com
    Thanks James. Seems like the sensible thing to do. Appreciate the reference.
  • JoyceKetterer
    JoyceKetterer Posts: 813
    If you are comfortable with your EULAs and you don't want to have a lengthy negotiation process you can simply use those instruments.  Our studio just uses our regular tables for unlimited pricing. 

    For desktop we ask for estimates of the current users for each then mark them up for growth using internal tables.  For licenses that are usually timed we have an idea of the average number of years customers will use a font, we add a few years and then we call that perpetual.  

    I have also heard of foundries that simply multiply the desktop license by some number (say 15) to get a perpetual unlimited price.  That has the appeal of being simple and it still works out to a decent amount of money.  

    It could still be the case that they want some uses not permitted by the documents you have.  In that case I suggest writing a miscelaneas addendum for the additional uses so you can easily find their special terms later.  For that you will likely need a lawyer.  

    There are reasons not to use "the go to guy" when you hire a lawyer.  Not least because you want to have a relationship with your attorney and there could be conflicts of interest down the road if you have contracts with other font people.  I always suggest that people hire an intellectual property attorney with some experience in software and expect that you will have to train them about the specifics of our industry.  Preparing yourself for this work is the point of my workshop I teach often.  I'm not certain yet when I will next offer it but I always post an announcement here. 
  • JoyceKetterer
    JoyceKetterer Posts: 813
    edited April 2018
    Oh, one other thing.  Using your exisiting documents allows you to insist that any redrafting of the language is extra because your prices assume they will use your documents.  

    This is distinct from when they want an edit that grants additional rights.  The reason its useful is that it discourages gratuitous editing (a lot of lawyers will), and also gets them to be more effecient.  Its saves you money. Before we did this we had a few sales where we basically made nothing becaus of legal silliness. 

    We simply charge for direct reimbursement of legal fees without any markup.  This is super useful when a large company with in house council that isn't used to paying by the hour is involved.  You get them to watch the clock too and they wont waste your time. 

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