Clients often ask us to supply the font sets that we use in design, so that they can perform their own artwork updates or edits. Some are none-too-happy when we tell them that we can’t, due to licensing and copyright issues. Well, Letterhead Fonts – a great outfit from whom we’ve purchased quite a few fonts over the years – paints a cautionary tale about sharing fonts, and the very real cost of same in their $1000 font announcement, due to some of their fonts being released into the wild via a file-sharing site. Illustrates the very real harm that this kind of activity has, from both a financial point of view, as well as in the creative incentive department. One of the founders of Letterhead Fonts also expresses his understandable exasperation here. Most of the beautifully designed fonts featured cost $30 or less (with multiple purchase discounts available) – it amazes me that people won’t pony up.
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Hi Steve, I came upon your blog through an internet search on logos (no surprise) which led me to review the news about the $1000 font at LHF. I sense his pain, but to me the way in which he has responded is rash and immature. I don’t know him nor the entire story, but to me, not only is Chuck potentially shooting himself in the foot from a business standpoint, but he has resorted to taking the low road (revenge). Furthermore, and perhaps most significantly, he is explicitly penalizing his otherwise honest customers.
I mean, first of all, it is no secret that piracy has a direct effect on the cost of software, fonts and music, but did Mr LHF have to make a public (and whiny) stealing-costs-everyone lecture on his main business portal, his web site? By doing this he is implicitly raising a suspicious eyebrow at everyone who surfs on in. Is that how customers want to be greeted?
He sounds shocked that someone might actually do this. Granted the largely apathetic and even social acceptance of casual piracy, he is taking this far more personally than he ought; Piracy cuts very personally to all creators of all intellectual property.
One of his fonts—ONE—has found its way onto a p2p site that he has been lucky enough to track down. But there are probably dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of ill-gotten LHF typefaces around the world. Not that I know this for certain, but it shouldn’t seem unlikely.
I can see that Letterhead produces and purveys some good work and that for the most part the company is professionally run. I can see it is run by people who appreciate typefaces for far beyond their commercial value. But the kind of “I’ll show him” tactics they are using against one of their many probably pirates shows not this genuine interest in type but a preoccupation with settling scores. Meanwhile, outfits like Font Shop, Veer, Monotype and H&FJ are producing equally lovely work and not showing so much as a blink against the inevitable.
LHF also needs to accept piracy as inevitable and decide how it’s going to deal with it—and not make their customers feel responsible.
So, true. It is ONE font, and LHF offers many other nicely done fonts on the site (which I have been a fan of for quite some time) so only the client or customer wishing to use that one font will be affected. This is unfortunate however this leads me to believe that since the finger has been pointed and the offenders info posted, he will be receiving his lessons through email flooding as a slap on the wrist and we all know that an army of some is greater than an army of one.
I’d like to know where you would like to see the piracy line drawn and since when does standing up for yourself and your business become “whiney” ?
I’m sure the owners of LHF expect some level of piracy – no one is that ignorant that it does happen – but letting it pass will do nothing but leave footprints on their shirts from the shoes of a signmaker in this case.
In my opinion, they are treating this in a clever manor while making the point that they know what’s going on and they want you to know they know which as a result will make people think at least twice before doing the same thing. It won’t stop everything, but I guarantee you it will make a difference.
Pay up Randy !!
It may seem a clever way of dealing with the situation to some, but I am not convinced myself. All I see is a name smearing campaign by someone who is not necessarily or intentionally a criminal. If I were Randy, I suppose the right thing to do would be to pay up, but maybe he just doesn’t think he’s responsible in the way he’s presented as being at LHF and realizes it wouldn’t be worth the fight. Who knows?
There’s a strong sense of self-righteousness carried in all this talk about not stealing fonts, as though the people who simply do not see the unauthorized sharing of immaterial software as such a terrible thing to do. LHF has certainly gone the golden mile to demonize him though. As though any one of us is completely guilt-free in the piracy realm. Ever made a mix CD (or back in the day, a mix tape)? Ever record a program from TV onto VHS (back in the day)? Ever photocopy a library book? Ever blog text that someone else wrote without attributing it to the source?
Hopefully my point is clear: Without trying to legitimize piracy, I am pretty certain that LHF’s response to Randy’s font-sharing antics is over-the-top and stinks of a moral-superiority complex. (Look at how many times he writes the word “disgusting”). There are a great deal more disgusting human behaviours that I can think of besides font piracy.
In the end, Randy should pay up, everyone else should not.
T
Tom and Ann – thanks for dropping by and commenting. You certainly raise some valid issues – I understand LHF’s pont of view, but perhaps making everyone pay for his transgression is a little over the top. It could also be argued that the people who downloaded the font wouldn’t have paid for the font in the first place, so the ‘damages’ may be exaggerated (similar to inflated software piracy figures based on estimated illegal downloads and calculating that everyone would have purchased the software and would have paid full retail).
From a business standpoint I am sure LHF is reaping the financial rewards of being over the top. They have people like us weighing in on it, and driving a ton of traffic to their site. Which in turn drives up sales. So by my calculations – with all the added publicity and business driven to their site – they should be giving us the font for free now.
Hi Folks – yes it’s me – the infamous Randy Howe – long time Letterhead Font customer and unfortunately now the most well known, although for reasons that I never expected and can assure you I don’t deserve – but what the heck, who gives a flying f&%#* about fairness these days.
Truth is, many people do – although I was beginning to wonder for awhile.
After an initial barrage of emails from “sit behind the computer and mouth off chickenshits”, the tide turned and I began to receive emails from people with a little more sense, people who would rather get all the facts before passing judgement on someone they don’t know.
Chuck says I refused to cooperate…truth is, I refused to bend over to his threats and what I deem to be nothing less than attempted blackmail.
But we’ll leave that to the lawyers, and I have a good one.
sincerely,
Randy Howe
Hey Randy
Thanks for dropping by. As you can see by some of the other comments posted above yours, not everyone agrees with Letterfonts actions. While I can understand their position, I was never sure that ‘outing’ an individual was the best way to handle this. In any case, you’re welcome to post any future developments on The Factor.
I’ve been a fan of LHF for many many years since at least 2000 that I can remember and while I read up on Chuck’s story and I empathize with him I fail to see how he can take a moral high road here. If your familiar with his websites work and your a fan of type, you’d recognize many of the fonts as digital reworks of the past. As such what we are paying for are not new font’s per se but digital recreations. I don’t mind paying for these but to gimp them with unnecessary restrictions and then take a moral high road starts to irritate me. I will still love his font’s and credit him and him designers for taking the effort and design know how to bring many of these long lost font’s back to the main stream, but as far as I’m concerned LHF is in the same boat as those he judges. Unless of course they are giving credit to the original designer and typecaster, which I haven’t yet seen.