I was looking for an inexpensive font that looked like Neuzit Grotesk that my client can use for internal PowerPoints. I did not want to send them the real font that I have licensed for packaging work. I am trying to do the right thing. I get asked all the time: can you send me that font?
I came upon (Noveo Sans). It looks really close. I found it on Fontspring and MyFonts. It is from Fontsite. Then I noticed that Fontsite had a ton of very famous fonts with slightly altered names.
These look like exact clones or copies. Is this firm legit?
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On the "About the Authors" page in the book, it says, "[Sean Cavanaugh's] last real job was director of typography for SoftMaker, Inc., where he oversaw the development and release of SoftMaker's definiType typeface library and associated products."
His LinkedIn page says he's been "Principle" of FontSite since 1996.
Forgery, Cloning, Piracy, Plagiarism of Fonts
Documentations for Prosecutors and Criminal Courts
http://www.sanskritweb.net/forgers/
Copying someone else’s digital Clarendon or Clarendon-inspired typeface today could indeed be a copyright violation (at least, if the data in your source code matches theirs). But everyone is free to reinterpret very old Clarendon-style fonts, like those produced in the 19th century.
Note that several of the late 1980s/early 1990s interpretations of e.g. Hermann Eidenbenz’s Clarendon for the Haas typefoundry likely have the exact same outlines. As is the case with the Neuzeit clones discussed in this thread, that is not the result of piracy but because multiple parties shared the digitalization data. This is not a tactic that is likely to apply to fonts made now, but it is an element of the business as it was carried out back at that time.
I was looking at a typeface called Tango Regular at MyFonts. The Monotype website says it was designed in 1974 by Colin Brignall for ITC. I found a 1993 version by Bitstream, a 2002 version by Softmaker and a 2015 version by Fontsite that was renamed Tampa Regular.
Yes, plus Linotype, URW, FontShop, Agfa Compugraphic, and some other companies.
ITC had been acquired by Esselte Letraset in the eighties and was sold to Monotype in 2000. As I understand it, all the Letraset fonts had by that time become "ITC" fonts and were also acquired as part of ITC.
(Incidentally, Agfa Compugraphic purchased Monotype in 1999, renamed themselves Agfa Monotype, and later dropped the Agfa part, the Monotype name having more prestige in the industry than either Agfa or Compugraphic. Compugraphic was the most successful low-end typesetting manufacturer before desktop publishing. Agfa made graphic arts products, not type or typesetting equipment.)
In 1985, when I was working at a magazine, we purchased a Compugraphic digital typesetting system that included a quasi-wysywig display. Probably not the best investment on hindsight, as Mac- and PC-based systems would start to replace such machines within a few years. But in 1985, it still made sense. Mac- and PC-based systems were not quite up to the task yet.