Helvetica Licensing

A few comments based on the original question and responses:

(1)     If is highly unlikely that you “purchased” a font itself, but rather a license for use of the font.

(2)     There is no simple response as to what you can do with the font and any content using or referencing the font. Legally, you are bound to the EULA (End User License Agreement) in effect at the time you licensed the font. The EULA fully overrides any internal access privilege protections within TrueType or OpenType fonts.

(3)     EULAs vary tremendously not only from vendor to vendor, but often between one font and another offered by the same vendor.

(4)     There are a number of issues associated with licensing including but not limited to (a) number of users/devices that may have the font installed, (b) whether the font or subsets of the font may or may not be embedded in output from the design creation process - i.e., PostScript, EPS, PDF, ePUB, etc., (c) whether such output with embedded fonts may be subsequently distributed without payment of further royalties, (d) whether the font itself may be modified (glyph design, metrics, kerning, hinting, font format, etc.) by the licensee even if only for their own use, (e) conversion to outlines for purposes of bypassing embedding restrictions, (f) use of the font in web pages either statically or dynamically, and (g) use of a font in a corporate identity such as a logo, etc.

(5)     Make no assumptions such as “if you buy the font, your officialy coverd." (sic) That is simply not true!

(6)     Licensing Helvetica Bold from Linotype comes with a dramatically different EULA than the same font licensed from Adobe.

(7)     For the record, in terms of fonts licensed from Adobe, all fonts in the Adobe Type Library have a EULA that permits at least preview and print embedding in EPS, PostScript, PDF, and ePUB, have no restrictions against personal modification (although you can't resell such fonts), have no subsequent royalties for distribution of content with embedded fonts, have no restrictions against conversion to outlines or rasters (although that isn't required to bypass licensing restrictions, obviously), and have no restrictions against use in logos or corporate identities. Fonts in the Adobe Type Library marked as “Adobe Originals” (such as Adobe Garamond, Minion Pro, and Myriad Pro among many others) also allow for editability embedding that allow use of an embedded font for purposes such as dynamic use in a PDF file for forms fields! Web use (i.e., HTML pages other than as a raster) do require separate licensing.

(8)     Per (4)(e) above, it is total rubbish that you can assume that conversion to outlines or rasters legally bypasses any licensing embedding restrictions.

(9)     When in doubt, carefully read the EULA associated with any font you wish to use in a design and if necessary, consult a lawyer with competence in these areas (not an ambulance chaser).

          - Dov

What about if I use the font in a web software? The website/application will be used by thousands of people - do they need to have Helvetica installed? If I use a web font kit for Helvetica - how does the license for that work?

Thanks

Thanks guys.

I thought that was the case, but I just wanted to make sure.

If you buy the font, your officialy coverd.