Terminating Contract with Myfonts / pulling fonts off their website

Kaja Slojewska

Hi,

I'm planning to start selling fonts on MyFonts. I was wondering about the possibility of pulling the typefaces down, once they are up for, let's say, few months. Can you stop selling them whenever you want? (in case I find a better place to publish and sell my typefaces).

I hope there are people here with an experience dealing with situations like that.
Thanks!

JoyceKetterer

@Kaja Slojewska The contract itself should say.  As a non-lawyer, I still read a lot of contacts and have found that terms for termination should be explicate in any contract.  I'd not go by what anyone here says because they might have a different contract than the one currently on offer.

James Puckett

You need to read the contract. They change it from time to time so the rest of us might not know what’s in the current contract. Also, you know all of those horrible stories about record labels signing artists to horrible contracts that allow them to do all kinds of crazy shit with the artist’s work? Think about that.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

I remember the first version of the MyFonts contract: they paid out 85% royalties.  :-)

Kaja Slojewska

@JoyceKetterer @James Puckett I read the contract multiple times but I can’t seem to 100% understand it, I’m not that familiar with the lawyer language yet.

I thought I might someone here who previously taken fonts down from their website, but as you pointed out, it probably differs. I will have to consult the contract with someone who can lay it down for me clearly. Thank you!

Ray Larabie

I've had hundreds of individual typefaces hidden but not actually removed. They're hidden from view but customers who already purchased them can still see them and download them again.

Miles Newlyn

No need to read the contract, in my direct and specific experience Monotype don't abide by it if there's money to be made.

Oliver Weiss (Walden Font Co.)

@Ray Larabie - Just curious, why did you choose to hide typefaces? 
I've long been thinking about adding at least some of my fonts to myfonts.com, but I seem to recall there were rules around exclusivity that turned me off it.

Ray Larabie

@Oliver Weiss (Walden Font Co.)
A few years ago, MyFonts changed their policy in regards to free fonts. When MyFonts started, they allowed families which only contained free fonts. A few years ago, they changed the rules so free fonts were required to be accompanied by pay fonts or exclusive to MyFonts. When they made that contract change, hundreds of typefaces had to me hidden. They're still there...anyone who "purchased" them can still download.

I had a couple of typefaces removed from MyFonts a few days ago becuase they were just too embarassing...even for me.

I understand MyFonts' position on free fonts as they need a certain embedding license conversion rate to make free fonts worthwhile. Fonts.com and Fontspring move a lot of embedding licenses while MyFonts is mainly about desktop sales. If free fonts aren't creating sales or pulling in significant traffic, there's no point keeping them around.

Botio Nikoltchev

Practically the 2020 Monotype Font Distribution Agreement  cant be terminated (from foundry´s site) for "three (3) years from the date hereof ".

I´m experiencing an issue to update the family images on My Fonts wich they cant solve already few months. The exactly same update took me 4 min. at Fontspring. Anyway, I had enough of all release-, update-, communication-struggle with My Fonts during the years and asked them to remove my font-families.
Ammm yeah it turned out that would be not possible until Dec. 2023 

 

Saurabh Sharma

After facing many issues with a submission on MyFonts, I asked them to delete my submission so that I could sell it somwehere else where an exclusive licence agreeement is required (i.e. you are not selling somewehere else). But till date, neither my submission got deleted, nor there is any option to delete it. (Please tell me if someone is aware of such option on MyFonts).

Ray Larabie

@Saurabh Sharma You can't hide fonts using the Monotype Foundry Platform, but MyFonts will hide them on request. Contact them using the foundry support email.

Saurabh Sharma

Thank you @Ray Larabie. I will try contacting them again. 

Botio Nikoltchev

@Saurabh Sharma You should also check if your submissions on Monotype Font Platform are for additional releases on Linotype, Fontshop and Fontscom.

Saurabh Sharma

Thank you @Botio Nikoltchev. My submissions are currently available for sale on Linotype, Fonts, FontShop, etc. I had sent a support ticket today for removing or disabling the submissions from the entire network.

Kaja Slojewska

Saurabh Sharma Any success with hiding/deleting your fonts? I want to do that until I can terminate my contract at the beginning of next year. Also anyone successfully terminated their contract by now?

Ray Larabie

I have not terminated my contract with Monotype; however, I would like to note that the process of hiding or deleting fonts is considerably time-consuming. In my experience, it takes approximately eight months to complete the process. Last November, I requested the removal or hiding of specific fonts, and as of now, I am still awaiting the completion of that request. I sent a reminder a few months ago but they said it was going to take a bit longer.

I understand that the process may be intricate and likely involves manual editing of the databases. Additionally, my situation may be more complex than others due to the presence of my fonts across all Monotype websites. Although, the removal of an entire foundry's catalog might be more straightforward.

Kaja Slojewska

For now I have decided to hide the fonts and surprisingly it was very easy and fast - but I didn't have a lot of fonts on their platform. They replied to my email quickly and hid them.

Ray Larabie

I'm glad you got yours hidden. I'm still waiting for the fonts I've requested to be hidden. They told me to sit tight, but a nine month wait may indicate some kind of backlog.

Paul Hanslow

Ray, I'd persist and email 'them' once more.

James Puckett

Pay an IP lawyer to send Monotype an email claiming that the names of those fonts are trademark violations.

Ray Larabie

@Paul Hanslow Good idea...I did and here's how it went.

A Monotype representative wanted to know the reason for removal and I explained. It appears that there might have been some internal miscommunication as the task could have been assigned to multiple team members. Just guessing. This leads me to wonder about the complexity of their database management and the degree of manual intervention required in hiding a typeface across multiple vendor sites. There are intricate rules for each site: for instance, my unaccompanied free desktop license fonts are accepted on Fonts.com but not on MyFonts. Unfortunately, in recent years, I've been unable to edit metadata or update the binaries for any of these fonts.

For those newer to the industry, you may not know that MyFonts and Fonts.com were once separate entities. Releasing a font on each platform required individual submissions with differing requirements. Fonts.com operated on a system that utilized spreadsheet data with SKUs, involving individual fonts zipped into respective SKU folders. In contrast, MyFonts had comparatively relaxed submission requirements.

I certainly don't want to cast Monotype in a negative light, as I'm confident they are diligently working towards a solution. However, I believe we are still some years away from a unified database that operates consistently across all Monotype vendor sites.

In the past few years, I've grappled with numerous database anomalies. A recent example involves a font named Vinque, which was initially a free font available on both MyFonts and Fonts.com. When MyFonts altered their free desktop license fonts policy, the font was concealed on their site. Years later, I remastered Vinque, adding some non-free styles which led to its reappearance on MyFonts. Subsequent to their database merge, the font became uneditable on the Monotype Font Platform. It took quite a while to resolve this issue, allowing me to amend my ad copy, keywords, and pricing once more.