FontRadar

Mads Wildgaard
Mads Wildgaard Posts: 21
in Type Business
Hi all

After going through the threads and recently signing up for FontRadar, I thought it would be good to have some industry-wide discussion on how it can improve and help our license enforcement. 

Can we get some opinions from those of you who have used it for years and those who want to sign up but are hesitant?

I believe it to be a great tool for everyone in the industry, but I also see room for improvement. 

Comments

  • Nick Cooke
    Nick Cooke Posts: 202
    I signed up over a year ago. I had some good results initially but it has trailed off now which is only to be expected. 
  • Mads Wildgaard
    Mads Wildgaard Posts: 21
    Nick and Miles,

    Thanks for your comments. Nick, I agree and I expect the results to go a little slower. I imagine they collect a pool as they 'trawl' and that's why a large result comes at first, and then as they continue the cases are less. it's to be expected.

    Miles good for you— I'm also happy with the results thus far. Are you satisfied with their handling of customers, especially those who have the correct licensing but may not have their sites linked to the license? Would you be happier if you could contact on your own? I've talked to several other industry people who would've signed on if they could do their own 'policing' while still paying their share to use the service. I must admit I'd be happier too if I could police myself. 
  • Mads Wildgaard
    Mads Wildgaard Posts: 21
    Thank you for your input John, and I agree with your comment on their compliance service.
  • Mads Wildgaard
    Mads Wildgaard Posts: 21
    Joyce, that's a very valid point and it's very much the same feedback I hear from the rest of my contacts. Maybe this would be a good time for the FR team to listen and possibly make it possible again for us to use their service while enforcing it ourselves.
  • Miles Newlyn
    Miles Newlyn Posts: 256
    edited February 18
    @Mads Wildgaard We do our own license enforcement, using FontRadar for web crawling and communications management - I understand that this option is no longer available because of misuse by some foundries.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,945
    edited February 18
    I can understand why. The revenue-sharing is dependent on both the folks doing the investigations being honest, and revenue-sharing becomes tricky if the foundry team has (understandably and legitimately!) goals that prioritize customer relations more highly above revenue, compared to what a third-party enforcement team might do.

    Not to mention that it becomes dependent on the honesty of the foundry as well.   :#
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,316
    I’d be happy to sign an agreement to pay a finder’s fee to Font Radar if I were to resolve a license violation I had found with their tool, as well as paying a monthly fee to be able to use the tool for the thing I actually want to use it for, which is finding nice stuff for Fonts in Use, to identify customers for new fonts, and understand usership patterns for different font families. I tested the tool, and am very impressed with how it works, but their business model is the thing I am least interested in using the tool for.
  • Mads Wildgaard
    Mads Wildgaard Posts: 21
    @Miles Newlyn, It's of course sad that it's been misused because it's not exactly an astronomical income that this service represents, but more than anything a good way to search and keep an overview of enforcement.

    Thomas, yes absolutely it's a tricky situation at any rate. I find it to be a very fundamental difference between how foundries operate and have had issues with it myself. 

    Thanks John— again, I'm with you on that.
  • TimAhrens
    TimAhrens Posts: 61
    edited February 19
    To clarify the “misuse” that was mentioned earlier: I believe Myles was referring to cases in which the foundry sells a licence after having discovered a use via Font Radar, or the customer approaching the foundry after being contacted by Font Radar. In these cases, the foundry is obliged to report this as a manual settlement, and pay the share as if the sale had gone through the Font Radar system (this may even lead to a negative balance at the end of the month). Not reporting these licence sales is tempting but it is clearly misuse, of course.
  • bojjoe
    bojjoe Posts: 3
    I have been using it for a good year or more and its helpful in two ways as someone else mentioned: find good uses and potentially infringing licenses (found a whole pharma group unlicensed through there, so yeah sometimes is stuff worth chasing). Overall, it misses a lot of sites, as I had found ones the radar did not, but it's a nice extra thing to have (i'm on the % option with no litigation)
  • Mads Wildgaard
    Mads Wildgaard Posts: 21
    Tim, yes that was exactly what I had in mind— this is in-line with the kind of anecdotes @bojjoe mentioned with the pharma group. Thanks for chiming in. Are you using their service as well?
  • Miles Newlyn
    Miles Newlyn Posts: 256
    @TimAhrens exactly right.
  • Stuart Sandler
    Stuart Sandler Posts: 380
    For clarity, what does FR actually discover? Infringing web fonts? Do they have some capability to look at Apps? Marketing Campaigns? Banner advertising? It would seem to me that if the interest was creating tools to perform the same searches as them so each foundry could do its own reach out that it could be worthwhile to define what the tool can and should look for.
  • Mads Wildgaard
    Mads Wildgaard Posts: 21
    Apps they find too, but to my knowledge no marketing campaigns or banners. Social Media they investigate too.

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