I just licenced some type and spotted this in the EULA:
2e.) Output Devices: The Font Software may be used with a maximum of five (5) output devices per licensed computer. However, the Font Software may not be installed or used with any device that displays a reproduction or facsimile of the Font Software or the designs embodied in the Font Software. This includes, but is not limited to: game playing devices, game of chance devices, mp3 players, electronic books, or mobile phones or other mobile devices.
All such uses are not permitted installations and are not authorized output devices/uses under this License. Any such installation or use requires the purchase of a special license.
Does this mean I cannot install the font on my Kindle for personal use? Equally, on my iPad to us with design apps? (I have to admit I've not properly explored adding additional typefaces to my iPad, but it is something I want to explore in the future as I do more using it) I would have thought the iPad counts as a device the same as another laptop etc.
Comments
Without reading the rest of the EULA, my best guess is that the point of this language is probably to prevent large scale installations for corporate purposes (including app embedding). If I'm correct, the language is awkwardly written. I've been there with other clauses in my own EULA. The foundry probably knows it's confusing and is planning to edit it in the next round of EULA edits. If you ask them there's a good chance they will tell you their intent wasn't for it to effect an end user at all.
I know some foundries want to license installation of use on an iPad as a separate use, but my personal preference is to include it in a basic desktop license. These days, people use fonts with software on a variety of computing devices, and I don’t think it makes sense to make distinctions. There are ways to get a font onto an iPad for use there if one really wants to.
I think there is still some confusion in thinking about fonts that are distributed along (embedded) with mobile apps, versus a font that an end user installs and uses for their own purposes. I can’t tell from this EULA language here if it’s meant to prohibit both.
Font EULAs should not trifle with what OS any given device is running. A computer is a computer. I regard my Kindle as just another PC, not an “output device,” so if I have a 3 PC license I would simply count my Kindle as one of the PCs.
I'm pretty sure that the clause in question is only accidentally forbidding an end user from directly installing the fonts. Again, I don't know who's EULA this is so I've not read the whole thing but that's how this excerpt reads to me. I admire their creativity in the way it was written. The risk of creativity is always unintended consequences.
PS - I knew that you could use your own fonts on a kindle but since I don't have one I didn't know the procedure. Thanks for explaining.
But I don't think naming the vendor is out of line, unless they indicated that the EULA was confidential.