Pirated fonts being sold on Etsy

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James Puckett
James Puckett Posts: 2,021
in Type Business
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.

Comments

  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,173
    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.
  • Stephen Coles
    Stephen Coles Posts: 1,023

  • Ray Larabie
    Ray Larabie Posts: 1,463
    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.
  • JoyceKetterer
    JoyceKetterer Posts: 831
    edited August 2019
    @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).  
  • Stuart Sandler
    Stuart Sandler Posts: 392
    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.
  • Russell Bean
    Russell Bean Posts: 9
    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.

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