Web font services join fray as .webfont format gains support

At least two other services will join TypeKit in attempting to provide @font-face-compatible solutions to bring richer typography to the Web today. For tomorrow, several foundries have pledged support for a refined .webfont proposal being bandied about for adoption by the W3C.<BR><BR><a href='http://meincmagazine.com/web/news/2009/08/web-font-services-join-fray-as-webfont-format-gains-support.ars'>Read the whole story</a>

 

[timsamoff]

Any reason for the omission of http://kernest.com/? It's gaining a lot of users/sites these days.

 

[kindakrazy]

Remember, fonts are 'special', and need special DRM just for them, as they are extra special IP. Way more special IP than those stupid images, text or anything else on web sites.

 

[TheHat]

"Remember, fonts are 'special', and need special DRM just for them, as they are extra special IP. Way more special IP than those stupid images, text or anything else on web sites."<BR><BR>Maybe it has something to do with the fact that fonts are usually someone elses creation?

 

[THX]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by kindakrazy:<BR>Remember, fonts are 'special', and need special DRM just for them, as they are extra special IP. Way more special IP than those stupid images, text or anything else on web sites. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Right. So how many fonts have you made from scratch again?<BR><BR>This is no different than Getty Images charging licensing fees for using their professionally-taken photographs on commercial sites. Makes perfect sense to me.

 

[kindakrazy]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by THX:<BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by kindakrazy:<BR>Remember, fonts are 'special', and need special DRM just for them, as they are extra special IP. Way more special IP than those stupid images, text or anything else on web sites. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Right. So how many fonts have you made from scratch again?<BR><BR>This is no different than Getty Images charging licensing fees for using their professionally-taken photographs on commercial sites. Makes perfect sense to me. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>DRM != licensing fees. The font foundries all seem to be under the shared delusion that the only way anybody will license their fonts is if they are encumbered with a layer of DRM that's enforced by browsers. People license photographs without browsers having to implement DRM for them.<BR><BR>Particularly with open-source browsers, any drm implementation will merely be a small speedbump for anybody who doesn't want to license it, but will add meaningful costs to those that do want to license it.

 

[TreFitty]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by kindakrazy:<BR><BR>DRM != licensing fees. The font foundries all seem to be under the shared delusion that the only way anybody will license their fonts is if they are encumbered with a layer of DRM that's enforced by browsers. People license photographs without browsers having to implement DRM for them.<BR><BR>Particularly with open-source browsers, any drm implementation will merely be a small speedbump for anybody who doesn't want to license it, but will add meaningful costs to those that do want to license it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>Pretty much this. Why are you willing to line up and go for DRM in a font license, but probably not okay with it in music/movies/etc.?

 

[brownd4]

I think you can embed fonts in Silverlight executables where the user can't download it to their computer. No need for server-side DRM crap.

 

[mkill]

If it's shown on the user's screen, it's on the user's computer, so it can be copied. Doesn't matter if it's music, text, images or, as in this article, fonts. Any valid business model must take this into account.<BR><BR>Everytime something new comes on the Web, people will try to invent some copy protection for it (remember when people tried to copy-protect their html designs and CSS files?) but after a while technology moves on. Those who are willing to pay for individuality, will keep buying fonts, i.e. design houses and corporations. Everyone else will keep on using any font they got from anywhere, as always.

 

[iwod]

My understanding stops @ Downloadable fonts. Which i think will never work universally because Non English Language requires 10 - 100 MB. <BR><BR>How do embedded code work? A Set of XML code that tells Javascript how to render the font set? ( Which sounds very slow )<BR><BR>I think Ars can do a quick 101 class on Type Fonts.

 

[darkowl]

I don't want to have to download 200kb of fonts just so my favourite new sites can have fancy headlines, as you need to get normal, bold, italic and bold/italic variants just to cover the basics.<BR><BR>Bugger that.

 

[mpat]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by kindakrazy:<BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by THX:<BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by kindakrazy:<BR>Remember, fonts are 'special', and need special DRM just for them, as they are extra special IP. Way more special IP than those stupid images, text or anything else on web sites. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Right. So how many fonts have you made from scratch again?<BR><BR>This is no different than Getty Images charging licensing fees for using their professionally-taken photographs on commercial sites. Makes perfect sense to me. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>DRM != licensing fees. The font foundries all seem to be under the shared delusion that the only way anybody will license their fonts is if they are encumbered with a layer of DRM that's enforced by browsers. People license photographs without browsers having to implement DRM for them.<BR><BR>Particularly with open-source browsers, any drm implementation will merely be a small speedbump for anybody who doesn't want to license it, but will add meaningful costs to those that do want to license it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>++ on the DRM bit. The position of the font foundries is also slightly misrepresented here - originally, they wanted something more draconian, but now they've negotiated themselves down to anything that is not .ttf or .otf directly on the webserver.<BR><BR>.webfont is a security blanket for foundries. Right now, what you need to do to copy a downloadable font and use it as you like is:<BR><BR>1) Read the source of the page you're viewing<BR>2) Find the URL of the font file - possibly in a linked CSS file, but somehow linked from the main page<BR>3) Download the font file<BR>4) Install it onto your system<BR><BR>.webfont adds the following step<BR><BR>3a) Unzip the .webfont file to get at the .ttf or .otf inside.<BR><BR>Yeah, that will stop many font pirates. We're delaying @font-face adoption by years for THAT?<BR><BR>Alternatively, you can use open source fonts such as those available here.

 

[Arcanum-XIII]

iwod : uh, what ?<BR>Do you really need and extended set wherever you go, especially since you're not going to write in cyrillic, arab, greak, japanese, chinese or whatever, but just in the small subset of the english language (or any western language for that matter, most of them only add little diacritics). No, you don't. Then an extended set is way below 1mo and cover nearly all your need. Or maybe you need all then weight in every aspect of the font ? Dubious. <BR>Then you can trim whatever you don't want. <BR><BR>Darkowl : <BR>Well... I don't know you, but I haven't got a line slower than 4mbps for the last 5 year. And that's way out of a major city. Now I have a 100mbps line, and even if most adsl top at 12000, it seem fast enough to download sometimes a font. That you can (and will) be cached. Will be faster than downloading each time a fancy swf, or a picture for each headline.<BR><BR>DRM : doing a font is hard. Yes. Still, every font can be found on dark corner of the net, DRM will not stop anyone on getting them. Like music...

 

[Adasha]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by brownd4:<BR>I think you can embed fonts in Silverlight executables where the user can't download it to their computer. No need for server-side DRM crap. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Embedding fonts in anything that is non-text is exactly what font-face is trying to avoid.<BR><BR>Maybe I don't understand enough about the whole way fonts are downloaded, but if a browser grabs some or all of a particular typeface for a web page it doesn't actually save it to your fonts folder so how is it supposed to be stolen? From the cache which could be encrypted? If no-one can get to the full font-file then your typeface is safe, right?

 

[BajanDude]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">if a browser grabs some or all of a particular typeface for a web page it doesn't actually save it to your fonts folder so how is it supposed to be stolen? From the cache which could be encrypted? If no-one can get to the full font-file then your typeface is safe, right? </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>If the data traverses a network, it can be recovered. It might be encrypted, but then the browser would have to implement the decryption keys, which would either be on disk or in memory, and thus snaggable. While your average user really won't care about how they get the font, anyone with an interest and a bit of a clue can probably get it with a bit of work. The whole 'custom JS + only works for a domain' sounds a lot like encryption and referrer checking. The former can be sniffed/cracked, and the latter can be spoofed.<BR><BR>The foundries would probably love a micro-payment per page rendered; how they'd actually measure that is another issue (given the grief you get with click-counting on ads/page views on ads), and billing accurately is yet another issue.

 

[doornail]

Obligatory link to Mark Pilgrim's slant on all this -- which I agree with.<BR><BR>http://diveintomark.org/archiv...1/fuck-the-foundries<BR><BR>It's great that designers want more flexibility but adding padlocks to the web is a flying leap backwards. Instead, Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla, and Opera should build upon Microsoft's original 'web fonts' kit by licensing new fonts directly from font creators. Pay some guy $x,000 for the 'web edition' and everyone is free to use that font on their site.

 

[LavosPhoenix]

Yeah, just another stupid option to toggle off whenever I setup firefox or whatever browser. It's just yet another excuse to waste power and bandwidth. For example, what happens when the font server doesn't respond right away, so the browser draws the page, then the font server responds? Will the browser then waste even more power redrawing the page so some corporate shrill can brainwash you into buying their ever shittier products? Seriously, to hell with that.

 

[obarthelemy]

I have a hard time caring. There's plenty of very nice-looking web sites as is... and there's plenty of god-awful sites that definitely SHOULD focus on many things before fonts... and probably WILL focus on them.<BR><BR>So it will distract web designers, make pages heavier/slower... Change that. I DO care. I'm against.

 

[swhx7]

I'm fine with this whole scheme - as long as my favorite browser has an option to disable @font-face.<BR><BR>Edit: I was just going to say that, but thought of some other points:<BR><BR>1. All the fancy fonts are replaced by plain-old regular ones if you look at local copy of a page, or look at it with a different browser, unless it makes a new network connection? No thanks.<BR><BR>2. New binaries = new security hazards for Windows users.<BR><BR>3. By limiting what fonts are installed on the PC, you can allow sites to specify fonts, yet still prevent horrors like Comic Sans. If you turn on the @font-face option (or use a browser that doesn't allow turning it off - gaaaaaaa!) you lose control over what fonts you will see.<BR><BR>Thus, back to my original comment, I'll turn it off.<BR><BR>For those exulting about how much nicer pages could look with thoughtful design and expertly chosen fonts, what do you think the proportion will be of pages like that to pages that are esthetic disasters? I predict about 1:1000 or worse.<BR><BR><I>This comment was edited by swhx7 on August 04, 2009 14:33</I>

 

[Trout Mask Replica]

The thing to watch here is the per use or rent-based licensing. Currently, you buy a font and you use it as you see fit. What many of these sites are pushing for( and the foundries are certainly behind it ), is perpetual licensing payment. It's no different than all the other media and software payment models the creators of such dream about. Pretty sweet deal for something that has a one-time cost to create and then can be endlessly duplicated for $0.00, but charged for in perpetuity. I create once, you pay me over and over. <BR><BR>I bet everyone wishes they could get paid forever for last Tuesday's widget.

 

[earl grey]

All i can say is that there are already a crap-load of websites i never visit at home with my wonderful dial-up service and that ANYTHING which slows down access to web sites will put them on the "don't bother visiting" list. -- View image here: http://episteme.meincmagazine.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif --

 

[psb]

Is there a table somewhere that lists side-by-side suitable Mac and Linux alternative fonts to use for Windows fonts, and vice versa? Including the Vista/Office2007/Windows 7/Snow Leopard fonts, with fallback font alternatives when they're not available?<BR><BR>Then I would say, let the operating systems or web browsers license and include a wider selection of fonts.<BR><BR>Then if I wanted to use, e.g., Mac Optima, in CSS, I could also specify a Windows and Linux similar font alternative easily without having to do masses of personal research, and know it would roughly look the same.

 

[orestis]

The existing web fonts handle Greek very nice, thank you very much. It's the "fancy" fonts that only support latin and are a PITA for Greek users.

 

[foresmac108]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by timsamoff:<BR>Any reason for the omission of http://kernest.com/? It's gaining a lot of users/sites these days. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>To be quite honest, I'd never heard of it. I'll definitely look into though, as I hope to do a round up of the various type services when they are all launched.

 

[foresmac108]

I'll just re-iterate this again, as the point seems to have flown by some of the commenters: None of these type services use, or act as, DRM. Foundries are well aware that DRM pretty much doesn't work; they are well aware that even with the obfuscation that these services provide that it's still possible to steal fonts; they are well aware that Firefox and Opera will not enforce licensing.<BR><BR>The idea is to make stealing the fonts a) not as trivial as clicking, and b) so that those who do it do so knowing it is wrong. EOT is essentially dead. Berlow's permissions table is an interesting idea, and works with standard OT fonts, but the second biggest browser is just plain not gonna support it. .webfont is designed to include relevant licensing information in the file, and yes, you could unzip it, extract the fontdata and pour it into a OTF file. That still means you'd have to take active steps to do so, and should you ever end up in court over it, it would be easy to prove willful infringement.<BR><BR>Yes, if data is on a network, or in digital format, it can easily be stolen. That doesn't mean it's ethical (or even legal) to do so. Typographers work hard and I believe they deserve to be paid for their work.

 

[randsco]

As a web designer and site owner, I don't <I>want</I> to rely on font service providers. I don't like the 3rd party server reliance, paying fees or requiring visitors to have Flash and/or JavaScript installed, working, current and/or enabled. <BR><BR>As a web developer, I don't <I>need</I> to rely on font service providers, because there already exists an easy, cross-browser method of embedding fonts using CSS3's @font-face selector. It's easy, it's valid, follows web standards, there's no 3rd-party server reliance, it's free and doesn't depend on either JavaScript or Flash.<BR><BR>No disrespect to foundries and or font services that create or offer professional, high-quality fonts. They should be able to charge what they can for their work and services. However, there are already free fonts, some of high-quality and many of acceptable quality. I'll be using those for the majority of my projects. ;-)