As we know, understanding all the licensing restrictions on a product before you buy can be difficult. But when vendors are determined to put the squeeze on their customers through unrealistic usage limitations, not understanding the license can also be expensive.
One reader recently discovered this after her company had purchased a $95 font from Emigre.com to use in the design of a logo. "It turns out that the license is restricted to using the font at a single site with no more than six devices, which includes both computers and printers. Ridiculous! I actually called Emigre to find out if they were serious. A printer, I pointed out to them, does not store fonts. But they didn't have a solution for me. They just said that if we had, for example, five computers, a draft printer, and a high-quality printer, we would have to purchase two licenses for the same font because we'd be exceeding their limit of six devices."
Emigre's licensing page says that all CPUs, workstations, printers and any other hardware that rasterizes or displays the font is counted toward their six-device limit. And that's not the only usage limitation in Emigre's licensing. The fonts can't be used at more than one physical location, even by the same company. If documents incorporating the fonts are printed by a print shop, an additional "service bureau" license is required. If the user is going to publish or distribute any PDF documents that include the fonts, Émigré charges an "embedded license" fee of $150 a year.
Unfortunately for the reader, her company had already employed the font in its design when she discovered these restrictions. "I'd love to just get a different font from somebody else, but this one was used to generate a trademarked logo and it's therefore being used to type titles on many of our documents and on our CDs," she wrote. The reader used Emigre's "license-calculator" to see what it would require to at least be somewhat in compliance with the restrictions. "I got a quote of almost $900," she wrote. "This is just so that I can create documents with the logo, my boss and the customer support project manager can proof them, the print shop can print them, I can use my regular Kinko's, a co-worker can create the CD labels, and we can use our trademarked logo on our PDF documents."
Even then, the reader feels there is no way her company or many other real-world users can be sure they are in compliance with all of Émigré's restrictions. "I work for a company with fifty-some divisions around the U.S.," she wrote. "My own department is spread around the country in different offices. To maintain control of our documents, I distribute them in PDF format or print directly to a printer in that division. Am I supposed to buy a license for the thousand-some printers we have nationwide? Can I take my laptop home and work on it without violating their definition of a site? What if someone takes my PDF file home and prints it on his home computer? If I am traveling and have to use an alternate Kinko's, is that a violation? What if I work on my commuter train or while flying? Are any of their users NOT in violation of their license?"
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