Font Face Ninja

Dave Crossland

http://fontface.ninja as a polished visual design and makes it easy to play with web fonts on other websites, and download them.

I figured the community here might like the blacklist request at the bottom of the page

James Hultquist-Todd

I spoke with them yesterday and they said that the new version of their service is set up to redirect the user to the retail outlet (or your own store) of your choice if you choose to be on the blacklist .

Josh Apostolopoulos

I've been using a similar tool, Type Sample, and I've found it really useful. It has no download function, but I'm confused why that option is available at all with the tool you've posted; it encourages theft, no? Wouldn't it be more reasonable to link users to the page where they can acquire the font they select?

James Puckett

I've been using a similar tool, Type Sample, and I've found it really useful. It has no download function, but I'm confused why that option is available at all with the tool you've posted; it encourages theft, no?

They want free publicity. They’re trolling for a font company to complain or send them a legal threat so they can dance around shouting “Look at me, look at me! THE FONT INDUSTRY WANTS TO TAKE AWAY YOUR FREEDOM!” until they make the front pages of Reddit, Slashdot, and BoingBoing.

James Hultquist-Todd

Font ID.

Jeremiah Shoaf

Smashing Magazine just featured Fontface Ninja in their newsletter which gets sent out to 184k subscribers. They are a pretty reputable design site so I was surprised they featured a tool that is basically meant for pirating fonts. The download button essentially says "Please don't steal fonts. Click here to steal the fonts".

Type designers shouldn't have to add their fonts to a "blacklist" to not have them be pirated. Maybe they should assume type designers don't want their fonts to be downloadable by default?

Dave Crossland

Its a logicaly propositoin that most web fonts are libre web fonts, and you are encouraged to share and download them

Jackson Showalter-Cavanaugh

A person who scrapes a webfont out of a website doesn't give a two shits about the license, libre or not. They're not going to see a license, libre or not. That's a problem.

Matthew Butterick

Dave, the issue is thornier than you suggest.

Though the OFL permits webfont usage, SIL deems this to be a form of distribution. If small changes are made to the fonts — even subsetting — it’s deemed to be a modification.

Thus, SIL's position is that if you use OFL fonts as webfonts, you have to meet the OFL’s specific requirements about distribution and modification. If not, you are violating the OFL.

In light of this, it’s an open question whether the activity you recommend — to “share and download” OFL webfonts from a website using them — would comply with the OFL, or violate it (in which case an irony fairy will get its wings).

It’s also an open question whether a website that uses OFL webfonts, but offers its content subject to an umbrella terms-of-service agreement, is violating the OFL, because this would amount to distributing the fonts under a different license (which is forbidden by the OFL).

Dave Crossland

Jackson, do you think EPAR tables would help?

Matthew, I don't see any thorns here. Distributing fonts from web servers to web browsers is indeed a form of distribution. And small changes are indeed modifications. Well, gee. If an OFL licensed font is distributed to you, then you are free to redistribute it further; that's the purpose of the OFL. Where are the irony fairies here?

You seem be confused about the nature of copyright licenses versus contracts. A web server that distributes fonts under the OFL and HTML under another license and JS under another license is not ambiguous. None of these form a combined work, so their copyright licenses do not have to be compatible.

attar

> (in which case an irony fairy will get its wings)

Not necessarily. For instance, if I don't want someone to convert the PS outlines of my SIL OFL-licensed font to TTF with whatever clumsy hinting, the OFL protects against that – so you are assured that derivatives won't bear the original name.

Max Phillips

Update: Just got an email from the Ninja guy (who I don't know), in which he says he's made a new free tool to help foundries find websites using their fonts, and would I like a list of 10 websites where my typeface Center appears?

It was a little creepy.  Maybe I'm too sensitive.

Am I correct that his original Ninja tool is still basically a tool for pirating?  Has anyone else gotten one of these?

JoyceKetterer

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John Savard

Dave Crossland said:

http://fontface.ninja as a polished visual design and makes it easy to play with web fonts on other websites, and download them. I figured the community here might like the blacklist request at the bottom of the page

Oh, wow: a way to find out, when looking at a page, the names of the typefaces it uses. That sounds very handy!

And it advertises the sites where the fonts can be purchased, which is of benefit to font designers like those here.

But if in an earlier version, it facilitated font piracy, that certainly would be an issue. At least that has been corrected, hasn't it?

Axel CORJON

Hi there!

I’m the « Ninja guy »

I’d like to clarify some stuff about our work.

@Max Phillips: I’m so sorry if my mail came as creepy, maybe it has something to do with my English (or lack of mastering it). Anyway, sorry for that

The original extension was not a « tool for pirating fonts », It was, and still is a tool to identify and discover fonts and help graphic designers.

But, you’re right, it had a feature that let you download fonts from websites. We removed it probably after a month (it was a long time ago so I don’t really recall the timeline).

That feature was the result of my lack of knowledge about font licenses. That was definitely the most stupid stuff to do. I could explain to you the good intentions behind this feature… but definitely, nothing to say except it was both dumb and illegal. And I’m really sorry about that.

Nowadays, our extension has almost 300 000 users. We have maintained and improved this (free) extension for the last 5 years and helped a lot of graphic designers discovering new fonts (which we are really proud of). 

We are now making a new project linked with our extension. We spend a lot of time working on it to try to find the best balance between graphic designers and Type designers needs.

We want graphic designers to have a more efficient workflow and at the same time, help type designers sell more fonts. We also want to educate graphic designers and their clients about fonts licenses (I was, unfortunately, the best example that there's a huge issue here...)

On the type designers side, it is a free and non-string attached way to improve your font discoverability, let people try your fonts in a secure way (basically, they won't be able to get the font files), get font statistics and get a list of websites using your fonts.
This is free now and will remain free.

If you want to learn a little bit more: https://www.fonts.ninja/foundries/ or contact me

I'm so sorry, this post was really long and probably full of English errors

Max Phillips

Thanks for your response, Axel. I appreciate the new information, and am happy to hear you removed the download feature from the original tool; I hadn't heard that before. I'll have another look at your foundry-oriented project.

JoyceKetterer

@Axel CORJON Nothing makes me like a person more than a gracious apology.  Thank you.

Many of us have said more times than it would be sane to count that customers like to find fonts via lists.  You've made a really interesting version of a list - organic and end user self generated.  I think this is potentially a really exciting idea and I look forward to our meeting tomorrow.

For those who are still deciding if they want to meet with you, can you please explain your revenue model?  I totally understand why you'd feel you can't charge foundries for referrals because you'd need 100% adoption for the tool to work as desired.  From what you've written, I think you might be implying that the tool is going become something the end users need to pay for.  Is that right?

Axel CORJON

@Max Phillips thanx for taking the time to read this long post. I'll be glad to answer any questions you'll have.


@JoyceKetterer thanx

Regarding the revenue model, it is gonna be free for foundries for two reasons:
- As you guessed, we need a lot of awesome foundries and type designers to join our project to make it work as intended.
- The other reason is that we want to remain "neutral". One of the future updates of Fonts Ninja will improve the discoverability of any fonts. I don't want "bigger" foundries trying to pay more to get more promotion. I'd like every type designers to get the same chance to be featured.
We want graphic designers to discover the best font regarding any given project their working on. That's why to avoid any conflict of interest, it will always remain free for foundries.

The revenue model will indeed be based on a small annual fee paid by graphics designers. They'll be able to try and discover fonts faster than ever, so it's gonna improve and speed their creative workflow a lot.

Theunis de Jong

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