Pirated fonts being sold on Etsy

James Puckett
Posts: 2,023
People are selling fonts on Etsy. Many are free fonts simply resold as commercial releases at rock bottom prices. I’ve seen some free fonts being sold by multiple Etsy sellers. In some cases they’re actual font files, in other cases they’re just outlines or embroidery fonts. If you have time to dig around you might find your designs for sale there, especially if you’ve released fonts for free. Unfortunately they have dozens of pages of fonts, so it’s probably impossible to find them all.
1
Comments
-
This sounds like something I've encountered from third-party sellers on Amazon or Wal-Mart. Somebody buys a plastic $3.00 chess set and then tries to sell it for $50.00 online to someone unsuspecting.
1 -
One of the embroidery font Etsy sellers is legit: Digitizing with Love. I get royalties for those. The rest seems like a font piracy free-for-all.1
-
@Stephen Coles I think fonts are allowed in because Etsy permits the sale of tools for DIY projects. I knit and it's the best place to buy cherry wood knitting needles (which I like because they don't click so I can use them in long meetings and lectures).2
-
Etsy only takes down products when reported but at .20¢ a listing, they're up a week later. It's Whac-A-Mole and no real teeth to remove sellers that repeatedly add such products.3
-
James, thanks for alerting me to Etsy. Checked it and unsurprisingly found one of my fonts there. A polite request had it removed quickly but I am at a loss to understand how anybody makes money from such sites. Guess it requires input by devious means.
0
Categories
- All Categories
- 46 Introductions
- 3.8K Typeface Design
- 480 Type Design Critiques
- 558 Type Design Software
- 1.1K Type Design Technique & Theory
- 647 Type Business
- 837 Font Technology
- 29 Punchcutting
- 513 Typography
- 119 Type Education
- 319 Type History
- 75 Type Resources
- 110 Lettering and Calligraphy
- 31 Lettering Critiques
- 79 Lettering Technique & Theory
- 540 Announcements
- 88 Events
- 112 Job Postings
- 168 Type Releases
- 171 Miscellaneous News
- 275 About TypeDrawers
- 53 TypeDrawers Announcements
- 120 Suggestions and Bug Reports