Myfonts/monotype New Agreement

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Comments

  • Fontfruits
    Fontfruits Posts: 51
    @Nadine Chahine I think you will find that many independent type designers and foundries are fed up with distributers forcing unfair terms and royalties on them, but feel they have no choice in the matter, as many have, over time, come to rely on the steady royalty stream as a hefty part of their income. 

    The Distributers are taking advantage of this, by introducing  a 'sign it or leave' approach, knowing that in this economic climate, no one can afford to lose a segment of their income overnight. Only the few that don't rely heavily on that income have the luxury of choosing the 'or leave' option.

    Many type designers/foundries have started putting more effort into their own websites, and this is where the future is headed as things stand for Independent type designers now.

    The ship is turning, but it is a long slow process. 


  • Die in-dryfoun
    Die in-dryfoun Posts: 27
    edited May 2023
    A professional association of type designers could run effective advertising campaigns raising awareness about abusive conditions imposed on foundries and the importance of buying fonts directly from type designers or their preferred distributors. A kind of Fair Trade seal could be devised that could only be displayed by points of sale that meet the minimum requirements of said professional association.
    What about opening a thread dedicated to promoting the creation of this association and to summoning possible members?
  • Nadine Chahine
    Nadine Chahine Posts: 88
    Fontfruits said:
    @Nadine Chahine I think you will find that many independent type designers and foundries are fed up with distributers forcing unfair terms and royalties on them, but feel they have no choice in the matter, as many have, over time, come to rely on the steady royalty stream as a hefty part of their income. 

    The Distributers are taking advantage of this, by introducing  a 'sign it or leave' approach, knowing that in this economic climate, no one can afford to lose a segment of their income overnight. Only the few that don't rely heavily on that income have the luxury of choosing the 'or leave' option.

    Many type designers/foundries have started putting more effort into their own websites, and this is where the future is headed as things stand for Independent type designers now.

    The ship is turning, but it is a long slow process. 


    I would hope that people qualify that not all distributers do this. ILT, Fontstand, Type Network, as far as I know, do not engage in these practices. I can speak for ILT when I say that this is exactly why we decided to get into distribution. If each foundry does its own thing, the cost is very prohibitive and there is little room to apply pressure. A distributer can act in a way to bring foundries together, as we do at ILT. This is also why we run so many educational talks to help share our experience with the community.
  • Fontfruits
    Fontfruits Posts: 51
    edited May 2023
    @Die in-dryfoun This sounds fantastic! I'm pretty sure it would be overwhelmed with support as soon as the word gets out!
  • Ray Larabie
    Ray Larabie Posts: 1,431
    edited May 2023
    This sounds like the dictionary definition of a cartel—or is that only if price fixing is involved?
  • John Butler
    John Butler Posts: 290
    Speaking as a font consumer, I simply want to be able to continue to buy a perpetual, per-CPU transferable font license with no stupid subscription scheme.
  • James Hultquist-Todd
    James Hultquist-Todd Posts: 417
    @Ray Larabie I’m not a lawyer but I think you’re right; as long as there’s no discussion about—or agreement on—a minimum price for fonts, I don’t think it would constitute a cartel. 
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,186
    Basically, my understanding is that you want to avoid all specific discussion of prices. Definitely worth getting legal advice on what can and cannot be discussed in terms of pricing models.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,886
    Die in-dryfoun said:
    Also... I cannot help but think that it is ironic that the origin of the greatest disparity and injustices in our industry is the arbitrary and exploitative conditions that distributors impose on independent foundries, yet that is a taboo subject that is not openly discussed on our conference stages.


    I have been on the conference committee and reviewed proposals for every ATypI event for roughly 15 years now, including this one. I certainly don’t recall seeing any such proposal prior to the Paris conference.

    People may not want to call attention to any such POV where they are opposed to powerful opponents. But they also may not have felt like there was any point to doing so. Nadine is in a strategic position where it is very much in her interest to have independent foundries and type designers NOT do business with Monotype and/or seek out different terms, so she is speaking loudly about these issues. She also offered some nascent ideas about organizing.

    I am not saying she is wrong. Just that yes, she has an ulterior motive besides speaking truth to power or some such. Obviously the conference committee (myself included) agreed that this is a legitimate topic of discussion.
  • Die in-dryfoun
    Die in-dryfoun Posts: 27
    edited May 2023
    Were you also in the committee that allowed ATypI Paris' T-Shirts to be printed with the logo of a sponsor foundry with such a level of hierarchy that it connotes that the event belongs to that company? How can sponsors or organizers be allowed to use the event for their blatant self-promotion? No one raised a hand to set any limits?

  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,186
    Hi @Stuart Sandler I didn’t imply that Nadine and ILT were unique in treating foundries well. I was talking about Nadine’s motivations.
  • Stephen Coles
    Stephen Coles Posts: 1,007
    Simon Cozens said:
    Nadine led two sessions on the topic of power in the industry, where the relationship between distributors and foundries took up quite a lot of the discussion time.
    I attempted a live transcription of the second session, and posted on typo.social. It’s not complete, but I tried to summarize each speaker’s comments. Hopefully gives you a sense of what was discussed. Lots of ideas worth exploring in there.
  • Die in-dryfoun
    Die in-dryfoun Posts: 27
    edited May 2023
    @Stuart Sandler :D:D:D
  • Nadine Chahine
    Nadine Chahine Posts: 88
    John Hudson said:
    I am not saying she is wrong. Just that yes, she has an ulterior motive besides speaking truth to power or some such.
    Alternatively, one can say that Nadine’s efforts to create a distribution platform with a different model of relationship between distributor and foundries is part of her speaking truth to power, i.e. that her role as CEO of I Love Typography does not involve an ulterior motive but the same motive.
    100%
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,186
    edited May 2023
    • pricing methodologies

    We can’t talk about pricing in any way that could be construed as price fixing, but we can definitely talk about methods for working out pricing, and compare methods and outcomes. And as you did in your pricing session at ATypI Paris, Nadine, we can look at and comparatively critique publicly available pricing information.
  • Nadine Chahine
    Nadine Chahine Posts: 88
    Yes absolutely! We do have a similar session for Enterprise planned:
    https://ilovetypography.com/academy/seminar-enterprise-licensing/

    but it does make sense to have more around that! I would certainly love to hear more from foundries who are able to keep their IP in custom type projects. 
  • JoyceKetterer
    JoyceKetterer Posts: 812
    edited May 2023
    The main reason those of us at indie foundries don't advocate for a collective bargaining organisation is that we could then be accused of price fixing.  Yes, that's some backwards shit. The game is rigged. 

    TN could have been the closest we can legally get to a collective bargaining org, but it seems to be floundering.  Until there is a viable alternative distributor there's not much we can do. 

    That's not ILT, and it was never Fontspring either.  My understanding about Fontspring is that they gave the "best rate" or a much smaller customer pool, resulting in getting less money even while getting a greater cut of the gross.  
  • Nadine Chahine
    Nadine Chahine Posts: 88
    Sorry to state the obvious here, a collective bargaining organisation is NOT a distributer as its role would be to bargain with the distributer on behalf of the foundries. That rules out ILT, Type Network, Fontspring, Fontstand and any other distributer yet to be formed.

    It is also quite possible to negotiate in group with regards to conditions being offered without ever needing to discuss actual font prices. The informal group formed to represent the FontShop designers is one example.
  • JoyceKetterer
    JoyceKetterer Posts: 812
    edited May 2023
    Also to state the obvious, the phrase "price fixing" is something of a term of art.  It is not literally restricted to pricing but includes all terms of sale/distribution.  If font foundries  where to create a collective bargaining organisation to negotiate with the larger sellers  (there is a real chance that regulatory bodies would consider that anti-competitive. 

    I'm not saying I agree with any of this but the fact is that the system is set up to think of us as competitors who do not have a right to work together to negotiate with a vendor or customer. As I said, the game is rigged.  This is not just a problem in fonts, there is a problem of monopsony in many many industries.  Anyways, most of us who have any experience in the business side know this.  That's why there isn't already a union or similar. 

    My understanding of TN is that it's not exactly a distributor but more like a collective.  The club together to scale up productions costs do negotiate on behalf of their members with Adobe at least.  It's not exactly a collective bargaining org either.  As I said, I think its the closest we could legally get.  What I meant about there not being much we can do till there is a viable alternative distributor is that Monotype can basically set their own terms till there is somewhere else to go. 


  • John J. Blair
    John J. Blair Posts: 31
    Type designers are creative, intelligent people. It wouldn't be too difficult for designers to band together for THEIR interests. Since I am not a designer, I couldn't join in but I would look favorably upon any effort on the part of designers to protect their interests.
  • Ray Larabie
    Ray Larabie Posts: 1,431
    My understanding about Fontspring is that they gave the "best rate" or a much smaller customer pool, resulting in getting less money even while getting a greater cut of the gross.  

    @JoyceKetterer

    That's correct but it's also due to a difference in the types of licenses they were selling. While Fontspring may not have attracted the same level of traffic as Monotype's portfolio, they excelled in converting visitors into buyers for embedding licenses. Despite the smaller overall volume of sales, a greater proportion were for the more profitable application and web licenses.

    For around ten years, Monotype's application licenses were prohibitively expensive for smaller developers, whereas Fontspring offered affordable options for lower-tier application and web licenses. This led to several years during which Fontspring generated higher revenue for me than Monotype, despite the traffic differential. 

    In recent months, the balance has tipped in favour of Monotype, possibly due to the reduced percentage from Fontspring and the introduction of more attractive MyFonts application license options for small developers. I have also noticed a gradual increase in revenue from Creative Market. Given the current state of affairs, I'm focusing on FontBros for new releases.

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