What is the case with font websites (fontsgeek . allbestfonts etc) that seem to gather fonts from al around the world and distribute them for free? Is what there doing, or downloading fonts from them legit?
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free fonts?
- Thread starter zoran
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There are a lot of free fonts for personal use, these are not supposed to be used for anything commercial though it all seems to be on the honour system. I don't use any fonts from sites the ones you listed or others for anything work related, I stick to the adobe fonts that come with CC subscription.
It is very similar to the American "honor system" where no one is checking to make sure you're behaving properly, they just trust that you are. In other words, the license may say that you can only use fonts for personal use, but no one is checking to make sure they aren't being used for commercial use.
The only difference between the American and the English version is U.
Yep, they are. As said before many free fonts are "honor systems" and have to be used "exclusively" for personal use. They will not check if this is respected so many users are using them also for commercial use as well.
I personally download fonts from GoogleFonts which is open source and can be used for both commercial uses as well.
However when downloading fonts from those other sites, just be sure you have your antivirus on, just in case
Exactly, many people are just giving away their fonts without expecting anything in return.
Also if you noticed, many free fonts have only weight, they can have some imperfection (like cut corners), they are limited. Can happen that some fonts are just stolen from the original creator and uploaded on these sites.
The creators do not have to give their fonts out for free, lots of fonts do not have free options and you must buy. Not sure what kind of money they make off a font but I think if they were not selling any commercial licenses they would not be giving out for free.
That depends. There are some free fronts which may also be officially used for commercial purposes, in part with some limitations. It's usually stated in the corresponding license.
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yes, and it is up to the user to look and see how they can use the fonts, just like anything.
Where are you getting your free fonts? I have never seen a "low quality" font, free or otherwise, not even sure what that means. There are reputable free font sites, for personal things I would use www.dafont.com
A low-quality font could be one where the kerning isn’t consistent between letters, the x-heights are different for arbitrary reasons, it doesn’t include numbers or punctuation or ligatures, or is even compiled poorly and gives errors when installing.