Can OSX fonts be used commercially? - Apple Community
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That information is out of date. If you read the T&C of these newly available fonts, you'll see they exempt commercial use.
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How to Install the New Free Mac Fonts in macOS Catalina
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That information is out of date. If you read the T&C of these newly available fonts, you'll see they exempt commercial use.
Source for that?
It’d be nearly impossible to enforce this when the fonts are deployed at the system level across many millions of devices (iOS included) and even included in some Keynote templates from Apple. The latter could be viewed as practically encouraging commercial use.
Even setting that aside, it’d be unprecedented, as far as I know, for user-accessible fonts licensed with any OS to specifically exclude commercial use without some kind of warning to the user that it’s licensed for personal use only.
The iCloud and iOS versions of the iWord suite are pretty much identical. They'll show all of Apple's default fonts, including the new ones. They just won't show 3rd party fonts from your Mac without an app like AnyFont.
I created a Keynote presentation with each of the new fonts and their variants (16 different text boxes). Then, I opened that presentation on my iPad. The first time I opened it, it said fonts were missing. But as it was displaying that message, the fonts were downloading in the background, replacing the default font with the new ones. When I opened the presentation the second time, no error, so now they're installed on my iPad
ProTip: You can download all the fonts by selecting all the fonts in FontBook, then hitting the button (or menu item) for "Enable Font".
It looks like nothing happened, but it's thinking for a while in the background and will begin the multi-download in a minute.
It looks like nothing happened, but it's thinking for a while in the background and will begin the multi-download in a minute.
Font Book is yet another example which shows that Apple engineers only seem to test MacOS using a 12 inch MacBook as the only display. Below are examples of working with applications and Finder windows on a MacBook Pro laptop screen, then connecting a 30 inch, 2560x1600 monitor as the main display. It looks even stupider when connecting to a 38 inch, 3840x1600 ultrawide monitor.
1. Finder windows that were in the top left corner or the center of the laptop screen now open in the bottom left corner of the monitor.
2. Applications such as Photos, News, Stocks which I put in the center of the laptop screen now open in the bottom left corner of the monitor.
3. Documents from applications such as Keynote and Omnigraffle which filled the laptop screen now open in the bottom left corner of the monitor.
4. DMG disk image files for various downloaded applications frequently open in the in the bottom left corner of the monitor by default.
5. Some applications such as Dictionary, Font Book keep opening windows in the bottom left corner of the monitor no matter how many times I move the window.
Apparently, Apple engineers think that everyone should position their monitor so they are always looking directly at the bottom left corner of the screen. I have never seen an operating system handle window positioning as STUPIDLY as MacOS.
1. Finder windows that were in the top left corner or the center of the laptop screen now open in the bottom left corner of the monitor.
2. Applications such as Photos, News, Stocks which I put in the center of the laptop screen now open in the bottom left corner of the monitor.
3. Documents from applications such as Keynote and Omnigraffle which filled the laptop screen now open in the bottom left corner of the monitor.
4. DMG disk image files for various downloaded applications frequently open in the in the bottom left corner of the monitor by default.
5. Some applications such as Dictionary, Font Book keep opening windows in the bottom left corner of the monitor no matter how many times I move the window.
Apparently, Apple engineers think that everyone should position their monitor so they are always looking directly at the bottom left corner of the screen. I have never seen an operating system handle window positioning as STUPIDLY as MacOS.
There are plenty of organizations that enforce it. There's actually good money in it.
IBM recently switched to it's own font instead of paying the high licensing fees for Helvetica. https://qz.com/1124664/ibm-plex-wit...freeing-itself-from-the-tyranny-of-helvetica/
Same with Netflix and the font Gotham. https://www.marketing-interactive.com/netflix-creates-new-font-to-save-millions-from-licensing-costs
Could IBM and Netflix have merely purchased a Mac instead? I'm sure they thought of that. Instead, it's because merely buying a Mac does not confer an unlimited license to use those fonts for whatever.
In Font Book you can check the licensing requirements for a font - by selecting the font and clicking the 'i' info button.
If there are restrictions there will be a 'License' line there. eg.
"Licence You may use this font as permitted by the EULA for the product in which this font is included to display and print content. You may only (i) embed this font in content as permitted by the embedding restrictions included in this font; and (ii) temporarily download this font to a printer or other output device to help print content."
If there's no License section in the info for that font then you should be good to go.
Alright, those links simply aren’t relevant. The only known restriction on system-provided fonts is that you can’t copy the font files for use on another machine for which it’s not licensed. Unless you’re able to prove otherwise, as of now it appears these typefaces are no exception.
So, buying one Mac computer does not magically grant IBM an unrestricted license to use Helvetica on all of its machines; it grants them a license to use it on the specific Mac computers for which the license is granted, for personal or commercial use. That is to say, the license is not transferable, and legally you do have to be cautious about embedding fonts in documents using software that supports it. (This does not include PDFs.)
Gotham isn’t bundled with macOS (or any other OS to my knowledge) — it never has been and probably never will be because it’s a cash cow for H&C as-is — so I’m not sure why you even brought it up.
You didn’t provide a source that the fonts mentioned in the article, such as Graphik and Publico, are not licensed for commercial use. Every indication I’ve found, including the font files themselves in Font Book, is that both personal and commercial use are acceptable under the license. As I’ll apparently have to repeat myself, Apple themselves basically encourage commercial use by using these fonts for default templates in Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. That’s exposing their users to potential legal action at massive scale, with no warning whatsoever, if commercial use is verboten.
Like I said, that’d be unprecedented for system-provided, user-accessible typefaces, but it’d also be tremendously stupid on Apple’s part. Just think if a business owner chose a font provided by the system that they thought looked good — or even one that Apple chose for them in a template — to post a paper sign on the front door of their business and wound up getting slapped with a cease-and-desist letter or worse. Would that build goodwill for the Apple brand?
Cool? That doesn’t dispute anything that I said. In fact, I even said that I had looked at Font Book and there’s nothing that implies commercial use is unacceptable for these fonts. Not a thing. Funny enough, it appears that these downloadable fonts don’t even have the License field set.
And while we’re at it, the “license terms for the product in which this font is included” (macOS Catalina Software License Agreement):
There’s simply no requirement that any fonts included with macOS are only for personal use.
I noticed some of my fonts were “off” due to existing duplicates. I’m assuming this action will re-enable those dupes (IF you have them), so be sure to check beforehand.
[automerge]1590781527[/automerge]
From the presentation I created to force the download of the fonts to iOS. They do look nice!
[automerge]1590781733[/automerge]
Thought I’d add the presentation, too, for those who’d like to do the same.
I'm not sure why you're trying to step on my neck with this. I never said any font is exclusively only for personal use. I merely said people should watch out if they're planning to use the font for commercial use. It never hurts to check when you're business is on the line.
For example, the excerpt you posted raises more questions than it answers. It says the fonts can be used while running Apple Software, and that there may be embedding restrictions. But that says zero about what kind of license to the font comes with Mac OS.
I haven't gone through a font-by-font licensing analysis, and I won't unless someone pays me. But I would not at all be surprised if some of the fonts included with MacOS might be licensed that restrict use in advertising, or being embedded in mobile apps.
Again, it's better not to assume that just because it's in Font Book that it available for any and all uses. If you plan to use it commercially, it's best to do your due diligence. There are as many as a dozen font licencing lawsuits filed every month. It's a big industry. Some litigation finance companies have been getting into it recently. Nobody wants to be caught in their cross-hairs.
Because you’re muddying the waters on something that’s crystal clear.
Sure, Jan:
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No, it says exactly what kind of license to the font comes with macOS.
You can use it to display and print content when running macOS; you just may not be able to embed or send the font files to someone else — for that, check Font Book. That’s the license, and you just said it yourself: You’re free to use it except for those specific cases mentioned. There’s no exception made for commercial use.
Doesn’t take long to run through the listed typefaces in the article and see that not one of them even has the License field set or has any relevant licensing information in any other field, in which case it falls back to the applicable macOS Software License Agreement, which addresses the use of system-provided, user-accessible fonts.
It’s also pretty common-sense. Most paid/proprietary font licenses explicitly or implicitly permit commercial use, sometimes with limits on redistribution.
There are a lot of things that can “not at all [surprise]” someone; this doesn’t mean that it’s the case. None of the fonts mentioned in this article have any license restrictions other than those for any other fonts included with macOS. If you want to sit and go through the others, by all means, but that’s not what we’ve been talking about.
Now you’re putting words in my mouth. I never said that; I discussed exactly which use cases are restricted for fonts licensed with macOS, directly using the actual license language. I’ll choose that approach over baselessly referring to the correct answer from about 3.5 years ago as “out of date” and then going on to make incorrect statements — all while referring vaguely to “the T&C of these newly available fonts,” which either doesn’t exist or you’ve still failed to cite.
Seriously, you’re the one who said the terms and conditions “of these newly available fonts” (?) “exempt commercial use.” You still haven’t proven that. Now, you’ve shifted the goalposts to “well, it might be true for some macOS-provided fonts,” when it’s just not true for the fonts at hand here.
Anything else?
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There are so many fonts and mostly a lot of them look the same, I can tell the difference between comic sans and Arial but there are a lot of almost exact ones.
Out of curiosity, how long does it take to create a custom font? How much should I expect to be charged for it?
Out of curiosity, how long does it take to create a custom font? How much should I expect to be charged for it?
The first thing about custom fonts is, do you NEED one. If most of the fonts look the same to you, then you don’t likely need a custom font, just use any of the available ones.
However, if you’re looking for a custom display font, with most things, it depends on how complex it is and how many features you want, I’d guess. Like, are ligatures and special characters important or will just regular ol’ capital letters and numbers, do? And then, there’s varied costs based on how you plan to use it AND if you want the freedom to distribute it.So, I think what I said was you’d have to know what you want and what you want to do with it before you could get a general ballpark rate for a font. BUT, you can check the home pages for the fonts listed here to see how much public available fonts would go for.
The awesome Mac OS Catalina fonts you didn’t know you had access to
To see and install these optional fonts, open the FontBook application and switch to “All Fonts”. Browse the font list and you will see lots of font families that are greyed out—either because they were deactivated or they weren’t downloaded yet. If you right-click on a font or font family that w...
typography.guru
Your custom font would cost more to create if you want to own the design, though.
And why exactly aren’t these just provided automatically in an update? I don’t get it. Seems strange.
Since Apple’s aware of how many times those fonts get downloaded, I would guess that instead of paying a huge license fee for the tail end of Catalina, they’re instead paying per “unique” installation. So, if only a million folks download them, then the vendors get a lower payout. As they’re now system fonts, I’d guess that the licensing for the next OS will assume an install on every possible Mac that can run that OS. Oh, and I guess iOS, iPadOS, too.
