Ethics have gone to hell, I'm afraid. It's not only font thieves who have me thinking this way; they just serve to illustrate what seems to be a distressing trend.
My eyes were opened when I sprung for one of those $12 specials offered by a big Mac catalog company: a CD-ROM containing 1,500 fonts. I was curious about the fonts' quality, variety, and completeness -- I couldn't imagine how anyone might make a nickel off such a deal. I figured it had to be shareware and wanted to know if my stuff was represented.
I've grown accustomed to seeing my shareware typefaces -- each the result of long, painstaking effort -- used without qualm by non-registrants. Sure, I got a little steamed at first; but I've learned to take satisfaction from the idea that folks like my stuff enough to use it, with or without paying. And let's face it: much of the wired world thinks "shareware" is just another word for "free," perhaps because of the implication of the root word "share."
But doesn't the word also imply courtesy, and generosity? With few exceptions, I don't see a lot of that floating around cyberspace these days.
True, some people are merely clueless. Others intentionally overlook my ReadMe file, where they'd find payment information. In particularly blatant cases -- like the high-circulation magazine that used Treefrog in its logotype (the logotype!) -- I'll politely request my fee. And, fact is, for the most part, people pay up when I approach them.
I hadn't confronted bald-faced, shameless, type counterfeiting until I got a look at that CD-ROM's whopping contents: among the fonts were two of mine -- too quirky and unique to be mistaken -- listed under different names. My blood sizzled. This was no shareware library. Someone had opened my original fonts and renamed them (to avoid trademark infringement) in order to sell my work as their own. Work I spent months completing was swiped with a couple Fontographer commands.
Worse, on further studying the CD-ROM's font list, I recognized other shareware and commercial typefaces, similarly renamed. The product, as far as I could tell, was one big knockoff.
Incensed, I acted swiftly. Telephoned the catalog company. E-mailed the CD-ROM publisher. (My ire was so extreme, in fact, that he threatened to sue for slander.) And that evening, astonishingly, I got a phone call from the conscienceless font "developer" himself.
The conversation was implausibly cordial, considering. But I had to shake my head as this fellow -- talking animatedly in a high, defensive voice -- attempted to defend his right to tap my measly revenue stream.
First, he cited U.S. copyright law -- his chief ally, sad to say. Alone among enlightened countries, the U.S. still considers typeface shapes as derivative of the alphabet, which belongs to everyone. It's a wild anachronism, as mired in dim history as laws permitting slavery or denying women's suffrage. No matter: the knockoff artist had the government on his side.
But hadn't he acted, at the very least, unethically? His answer: "I'm a family man," he said. "I read my kids bedtime stories" -- stuff like that. As if being an attentive parent translates automatically into sparkling business ethics.
Alas, even after the bedtime stories, I suspect that this man's sleep may well be sound, his dreams unblemished by any trace of moral principle. And, alas, he's not alone.
In growing numbers, we seem all too happy to claim what doesn't belong to us as our due. Unapologetically self-centered, we think we're owed free stuff. I bet hotel towels are vanishing at a record pace. It's a perverse, twisted notion -- that life means taking, acquiring, accumulating. And the dead guy with the most toys wins.
And, heck, let's pass some of it around, while we're at it. It's Robin Hood gone berserk.
Since cracking that first CD-ROM case, I've learned of numerous other grubby-handed knockoff operations. Where do they get their customers, these places? What serious graphic designer would look twice at such a product? Seems obvious to me that fonts costing less than a penny apiece must fall into one of two categories: stolen or godawful.
Maybe I'm tilting at windmills, but I'll keep at it. The only alternative remains too distasteful to contemplate: complete resignation -- that is, to quit creating anything that folks might steal, then pretend they rightfully own. Sorry: when I get an idea, and struggle to make it real, and tweak and fiddle and stay up all night, and finally feel that wave of relief at kerning my last pair, I don't then say to myself, "Now, to give it all away for free!"
Conscientious folks will understand. Trouble is, too many of us seem content in the knowledge that, safe in the anonymity of cyberspace, we can just reach out and pluck up whatever morsel is out there, never mind who came up with the idea.
Such misguided reasoning can only result in less creativity, fewer innovative designs, not to mention faith confounded, generosity taken down a notch, and lower levels of trust all around.
Brian Willson has moved from Texas to New England,
from broadcast to print journalism, from nature writing to typeface
design for his Web foundry, The Type Quarry. His current setup: running Three Islands Press, a one-man new media
company, in a loft overlooking an old water-filled lime quarry in coastal
Maine.
