The Great MyFonts Purge of 2009

[hrant]

> this board is too confusing with posts jumping
> all over the place when someone edits them.

Agreed wholeheartedly.
But that's not what happened in this case. I remember making the edit minutes after the original post, and furthermore the order of the posts was not affected. BTW, if an edit renders the order confusing I add a short caveat to that effect, at the top.

It's a good idea to read posts in their entirety before replying, instead of simply reacting to the first juicy thing one runs into and ignoring the rest, the latter approach being indicative of a greater desire to talk than to listen. In cases of lack of time/desire, it's useful to start off by stating that not all had been read.

All this is motivated by the desire for clear and gracious communication.

hhp

[Nick Sherman]

Hrant (and everyone else),

It's great to see that so many people are interested in making MyFonts even better! As I stated in the other thread, we encourage people to report anything they see on the site they think is plagiaristic. However, I wouldn't say we're at all worried or think that plagiaristic fonts are currently a problem.

The specialized "report this font" feature is interesting, but to be honest, email is still probably the most useful for us. It allows people to fully describe their concerns and requires no extra design, development, or implementation time (the cost of which would detract from other things we could be doing to more effectively help our foundries sell their fonts). I would hope that if someone thought a font was plagiaristic, they would take the time to quickly open a new email, drop the URL in and describe their concerns.

We obviously couldn't stop people if they wanted to make an organized effort to sift through the tens of thousands of fonts on the site looking for rip-offs… but in all honesty I don't think it would turn much up. We've taken our own efforts to eliminate plagiaristic material from the site quite seriously and I'm confident that very little has slipped through the proverbial cracks.

But, by all means, if anyone thinks I'm totally wrong and that the site is indeed riddled with plagiaristic fonts, please let us know by sending an email with your examples and we will be happy to investigate.

[hrant]

Nick, thank you for the considered response.

Maybe I'll do a judicious sampling and see if the proportion
of plagiarism is in fact worrisome. The only problem is I'm
not an accomplished font hound - there are at least a dozen
people much more qualified for such a scouting mission.

hhp

[dezcom]

The few times I have seen potential rip-offs mentioned here on Typophile, they have been very quickly dealt with and removed by MyFonts (and other vendors as well). Granted, there are plenty of revivals of old classic faces around but I have not heard of real pirated stuff except on free sites. The bigger issue seems to be user to user donation rather than reputable sites selling stolen work.

ChrisL

[Quincunx]

> It’s a good idea to read posts in their entirety before replying

You're absolutely right. My bad.

[hrant]

http://spiekermann.com/en/rip-off-explained/
Silkstone has been quickly removed. But Erik is a big name...

You want to make MyFonts more hospitable to reputable
foundries, big or small? Don't be afraid of activism.

hhp

[hrant]

This should not be on MyFonts:
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/softmaker/columbia-serial/

hhp

[dezcom]

You mean Optimaoff?

[quadibloc]

I'm just surprised it even exists. I mean, there's Zapf Humanist and Ottawa, if you want to buy an imitation cheap (through getting an old version of Corel Draw)... and, more importantly, there's MgOpen Cosmetica.

So if you're prepared to pay real money for Optima, I presume you would want the real thing.

[Queneau]

There is a song in there:
"Even better than the real thing"

[Luma Vine]

Maybe if you need a slightly higher x-height?

[Riccardo Sartori]

The problem, already profusely debated, is isn't specific to http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/softmaker/columbia-serial/
It's more generally related to http://www.myfonts.com/foundry/SoftMaker/

[oobimichael]

My background is moral philosophy, and I'm trying to get my head/heart wrapped around the issue of this thread... there seem to be various 'streams' here, such as:

1. Long-standing, historical, and institutional manipulations by large foundries (the multiple iterations and plundering of Linotype assets, the non-disguised Softmaker mass-theft, etc.). Perhaps I am unlearned in these matters, but it seems that this historical/institutional manipulation has gone largely unpunished... indeed... it seems to reverberate throughout various generations without a great deal of fanfare...

1a. To take Avant Garde as an example, I'm still confused why the ITC release contains all the cool alternate characters, whereas the Adobe release of "ITC Avant Garde" does not... is there revenue sharing going on, or not? Why offer differing releases of the same typeface?

2. The world of typography (even though the internet and other technologies have allowed for significant growth) is still a smallish world, and the politics of the players in this smallish world are human and prone to human frailties... such as recently witnessed in the case where Latinotype voluntarily withdrew a typeface:

Dear friends of Latinotype,

We feel it is a duty to inform you that we have removed the last typography published by Latinotype; "Bon Apettite" of Coto Mendoza.

The reasons for this decision are the similarities of "Bon Appetit" with the font of Sudtipos "Lady Rene", along with respect and admiration we have for the designer Laura Varsky, we assume that "Bon Appetit" has formal and stylistic similarities with Lady René .

We consider relevant assume our responsibility as foundry in our lack of rigor in the review of proposals with which we work with respect to those in the market; we ask
apologies to Sudtipos and to Laura. We made this decision the same day he introduced us comment.

As a proposed solution company we are willing to recognize this fact a great opportunity for growth and improvement in our procedures in working with type designers from Latin America.

Michael, Daniel and Luciano
Latinotype Team.

Now, I am NOT a typographical expert, but most would admit that it is a real challenge to quantify that these two typeface are remotely similar to each other. Thus, it seems that politics, bad blood, or whatever you might call it, is simmering in this soup... and it is this human component that sometimes drives designers to "call foul"... I, for one, would not like to take responsibility to referee these tangled webs !!

And, finally, 3: There seems to be almost a daily design of a new sans-serif typeface... and although it is laudable that people are creative... at some point, the tragedy of the commons kicks in... (and this is a pet complaint of mine: most of the new typefaces are simple affairs, not easily usable in professional settings which require condensed, compressed, narrow, variations, etc...)... I'm not sure what real benefit it is to go after all these "minor" offerings of a new sans-serif or other cute thing... their impact on typographical history will most likely be short-lived... so why go through all the effort to form committees, etc.?

Hmmm.. that should be a bit more than 2 cents worth...

[Nick Shinn]

The tragedy of the commons related to finite resources.
This is the digital era, where the quantity of type designers does not limit and diminish what is possible, but rather enhances it. Long Tail culture.

IMO the proliferation of foundries, each with its own version of the generic styles, subtly evolving in the marketplace, is to be lauded.

[hrant]

http://www.myfonts.com/foundry/Elemeno/

hhp