Patric KingMar 18

hi everyone—I have a few notes on type licensing from within an industry: medical (US)

(my company makes custom wheelchair cushions for people who live in their chair 24/7)

1) font licensing for these folks, unaccustomed to thinking about it, is very weird. nobody understands why some but not all foundries charge based on licensee's size. for seat-based licenses, none of them understands why they should buy for the number of users when there is no material difference in what they download. none of them understand why an OEM license exists.

2) there's zero understanding of why a font file from a craftsperson is any different from a free font.

this was pretty eye-opening for me—thought it might be helpful to you folks

Show threadPatric KingMar 18
I personally feel like these are just communication issues that could be addressed during the shopping and purchansing experience—but they're issues I'd never heard before first-hand
Show threadTiro Typeworks
@xotypeco I first ran across these kinds of reactions in the context of photography and illustration licensing (which is, of course, the model from which font licensing derives). People who had never licensed artwork before had trouble understanding why they had to pay more for additional uses or additional types of use. They’d paid to use a photograph in a magazine ad with a specific circulation: why did they have to pay again to use the same photograph in a brochure or on their new website?
Mar 18 at 8:40pmWeb
Show threadTiro TypeworksMar 18

@xotypeco Yes, this is a communication or customer education issue, but it comes from thinking about cost instead of thinking about value. The usage rights licensing model for creative work derives fees based on the (potential or realised) value to the customer. If a customer is thinking in terms of having paid for a *thing* (e.g. the font they download), they’re not thinking about paying for different ways of using that thing and the multiplcation of value they derive from those uses.

Usage rights licensing is specifically a response to ease of reproduction: the more easily reproduced something is — and copying a digital file is about as easy as it can get — the less material or inherent value the thing itself has. But the *use* of the thing may have huge value.