More questions on Monotype's subscription royalty model

Dave Crossland

Nadine Chahine said:

Monotype wouldn’t be the Monotype we know if they aren’t already looking to take type designers out of type design and they have enough fonts to train AI on. 

Hmmm, I'm not sure.

I don't see how people in the type business (myself included, as above) are incentivised to end the business; I can see incumbents' trademarks being valuable though - "ok computer, now make me a PDF for a poster using the above image and text from the prompts above, and design it with Helvetica®" and Monotype gets a penny - but I don't see how Adobe, Canva, Figma or anyone else is going to pay anything to anyone else when generating a document using this prompt ending in "with a swiss international modern typeface perfectly drawn with just the right proportions for each text element." 

I just don't know that many foundries will happy to see these generative systems remix their trademarked forms to collect that penny. But maybe that's where uniform licensing of large libraries will come in. 

Ray Larabie

I don't see how people in the type business (myself included, as above) are incentivised to end the business; 

Consider the possibility that they might be sleepwalking their way into obsolescence in the quest for short-term gain.

Christopher Slye

Dave Crossland said:

I don't see how people in the type business (myself included, as above) are incentivised to end the business

They’re not — but private equity investors are in the money business. I don’t think the long-term profitability of a craft like type (to say nothing of its long-term sustainability) is as much of a priority as near- to medium-term profitability. Investors with no appreciation for type really just want a good 5-year return, and then they’ll move on to the Next Big Thing.

Justmytype76

Christopher Slye said:

Dave Crossland said:

I don't see how people in the type business (myself included, as above) are incentivised to end the business

They’re not — but private equity investors are in the money business. I don’t think the long-term profitability of a craft like type (to say nothing of its long-term sustainability) is as much of a priority as near- to medium-term profitability. Investors with no appreciation for type really just want a good 5-year return, and then they’ll move on to the Next Big Thing.

Nail. On. Head. 

IfSixWasNine

Kris Sowersby said:

Again, these are general trends that I see coming for indie foundries. It would be great if these do not materialise, but the risk is real.

Ah, ok. Thanks for the clarification. So if I understand your position, the danger is resellers underpaying foundries and font prices not keeping up with inflation? I think I partly agree.

When you mentioned traditional sources of income, I thought you meant straight font licensing. Basically  customers paying for fonts based on their need. I don’t think that’s in danger, fonts are largely a b2b market and most businesses seem to want to do the right thing regarding licensing.

From what I have seen and experienced, fonts will be priced at the maximum the market will bear, like almost any other good. And resellers will pay the minimum royalty %, always trending down. I don’t think there’s ever been a font reseller that has announced to its “partner foundries” they’re upping the %. 

The biggest hurdle is making a font people want to buy and use. Once that’s cleared, the next difficulty is getting that to customers. I maintain that every foundry should eventually transition towards running their own shop, selling direct. Control the marketing, control the message, control the sales and relationships. Resellers and their varied licensing/bundling schemes should only be a stepping stone toward foundry independence. 

I was just wondering when you sell your font via e.g. Monotype do you need to give up your right to license out the fonts yourselves? So Monotype would be like an extra income stream. But with the option of keeping your own business (and maybe growing because of attention via Monotype). This should ofcourse be answered by someone not bound by NDA's

James Montalbano

I have 6 ITC fonts that Monotype now owns. ITC's royalty rate was never one to write home about (20%) but over the years with Monotype I've seen my quarterly reports go from low four figures to this last one which was less than $10. I've attempted to reclaim them but Monotype keeps telling me there was no exit clause in my original agreement with ITC. Given the paltry amout of money now involved I'm loathed to get my attorney involved.

James Puckett

I checked some search results on MyFonts and Font Bros. There are type designers selling their work with both. So it seems that Monotype does not require exclusivity yet.

Nadine Chahine

As far as I've heard, if you sign the new Monotype contract, you need to give them your full portfolio so while that is not exclusivity per se, it does prohibit that you have specific fonts that are exclusive with your own site or with other distributers.

You don't get any extra royalties for that.

Dave Crossland

James Puckett said:

does not require exclusivity yet.

What I've observed is that there is a requirement that prices are not lower elsewhere,  lest they tempt customers away to such independent sales channels.

This has been an issue for folks rereleasing fonts under OFL and wanting to keep the legacy versions untouched...