Licence for downloadable fonts?

[gamary]

The fonts are distributed so widely on the net that they have surely fallen into the free use category.

I'm afraid there is no such thing. Even is something is very widely redistributed, you are still legally exposed if you do the same. Granted, chances are slim that you would get into trouble for it, but you can't say you're immune to it.

It makes me think of Photoshop: I started (like most people) with an old, cracked version because I didn't want to invest several hundred bucks in software I might not be using. Once I knew I was going to keep using it, and especially try and make a little extra money with it, I bought it. It seemed to be the right thing to do, both ethically (it is a good program) and legally (didn't want to get into trouble, even though the chances of being sued are very slim).

I've never even heard of anyone getting sued for using an illegal copy of PS, although I'm sure it happens (especially if you're a professional user).

[Clint Mitchell]

There is such a thing as a free software licence. There are several different types of this kind of licence. It's like open source software. The licence allows you to redistribute, sometimes even improve upon, and or use for personal or commercial projects. The only thing you would not be allowed to do is resell the free software for a profit.

[Serval]

Be carefull CLint, I have to read an article about abuse of Open Source lisences. I'm pretty sure that many people think that Open source (and even Shareware) are "allways" free for use.

[Clint Mitchell]

No doubt you have to be careful. Take for example Ronnie Skyraider's Blockschrift Luftwaffe font. What licence did he give that? Ronnie?

[Serval]

It's beerware iirc

[Clint Mitchell]

Yeah, that sounds about right.

[gamary]

There is such a thing as a free software licence. There are several different types of this kind of licence. It's like open source software. The licence allows you to redistribute, sometimes even improve upon, and or use for personal or commercial projects. The only thing you would not be allowed to do is resell the free software for a profit.

I agree. I regularly use Creative Commons or PubDom pictures for my websites, but i'm always careful to respect what the particular license involved allows me to do with it.

What I meant is that the fact that it is widely used, legally or not, does not put it de facto in the public domain or any kind of free use category.

So many people seem to think that "it's ok because everybody does it" (try that when you get caught for speeding) or "it's on the internet so it doesn't belong to anybody" (I've actually heard an aircraft photo collector tell me that: he exposed his collection in the Bourget air museum and a large part of it came from Airliners.net and other sources. He wasn't making any money from it, but that still didn't give him permission to use all of these pictures taken by other people).