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I'm an illustrator and contributor to iStockphoto.
I would like to use fonts that I have licensed from Adobe with my purchase of CS4 and other fonts I have licensed on Adobe's web site in logo designs that I would like to upload and sell through iStockphoto.
The font software itself would not be sold. I would be converting any fonts I used in my logo designs to outlines in Adobe Illustrator before they were offered for sale.
Is this use of fonts licensed from Adobe permitted under Adobe's EULA?
I've searched the forums and found questions similar to this, where the answer seemed to indicate this is permitted, but I'm not sure if those answers addressed this particular situation.
Thanks for any information!
-- Mike
Yes, this use of fonts is permitted via the EULA for Adobe fonts licensed directly from Adobe. For other font foundries, you need to check each individually. Some absolutely prohibit this unless you pay a further sales-based royalty to them.
Note that outlining does tend to degrade output quality especially at various combinations of low resolution / low magnification / low pointsize. Why not embed the font in the output EPS or PDF?
- Dov
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Yes, this use of fonts is permitted via the EULA for Adobe fonts licensed directly from Adobe. For other font foundries, you need to check each individually. Some absolutely prohibit this unless you pay a further sales-based royalty to them.
Note that outlining does tend to degrade output quality especially at various combinations of low resolution / low magnification / low pointsize. Why not embed the font in the output EPS or PDF?
- Dov
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Thank you, Dov.
I didn't know outlining fonts can degrade output quality.
iStockphoto doesn't allow embedding of fonts in the contributor files they offer for sale. Anyhow, the fonts will typically be used to set a representative business name in the the logo design to give the customer an idea of what their actual business name might look like. When the customer purchases a logo design, if they want to place their actual business' name in the design, they will have to license the font and do it themselves, or go to a third party with a license to do it for them.
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When one represents text via "outlining," you lose the intelligence of the fonts. High quality fonts employ a technique called "hinting" that assists in rendering the text using the font's bezier (Type 1 and OpenType CFF) or quadratic (TrueType and OpenType TrueType) outlines. When the text is rendered, it isn't simply a geometric scaling based on those outlines, but rather, intelligence is used when you start running out of pixels in the device space (such as for low resolution screen display, small point sizes, and/or very delicate type with thin stems and curves) to render such that it is readable and not a blotch of pixels turned on. In use for a logo or non-technical illustrations, you typically are not using very small type and thus hopefully you will not see much in the way of artifacts when you do this outlining.
- Dov
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Hi Dov
I am also wanting to use adobe fonts for my logos on iStockphoto.com I was hoping you could tell me where in the license agreement it states that the fonts are useable in this manner. I am finding the license agreement very confusing and I am not sure where to look. I am looking in the Software License Agreement.pdf that I downloaded from the adobe site and have pasted the section below. Is there a particular license agreement for fonts? Thank you for your help in this matter.
14.7. Font Software. If the Software includes font software --
14.7.1 You may use the font software with the Software on Computers as described in Section 2 and output the font software to any
output device(s) connected to such Computer(s).
14.7.2 If the Permitted Number of Computers is five or fewer, you may download the font software to the memory (hard disk or
RAM) of one output device connected to at least one of such Computers for the purpose of having the font software remain resident in
such output device, and of one additional such output device for every multiple of five represented by the Permitted Number of
Computers.
14.7.3 You may take a copy of the font(s) you have used for a particular file to a commercial printer or other service bureau, and such
service bureau may use the font(s) to process your file, provided such service bureau has a valid license to use that particular font
software.
14.7.4 You may convert and install the font software into another format for use in other environments, subject to the following
conditions: A computer on which the converted font software is used or installed will be considered as one of your Permitted Number
of Computers. Use of the font software you have converted will be pursuant to all the terms and conditions of this agreement. Such
converted font software may be used only for your own customary internal business or personal use and may not be distributed or
transferred for any purpose, except in accordance with Section 4.4 of this agreement.
14.7.5 You may embed copies of the font software into your electronic documents for the purpose of printing and viewing the
document. If the font software you are embedding is identified as "licensed for editable embedding" on Adobe’s website at
http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/legal/embeddingeula.html, you may also embed copies of that font software for the additional
purpose of editing your electronic documents. No other embedding rights are implied or permitted under this license.