Futura STD font

[tibercaracal]

Dear Type & Typography experts,

is it possible or legal to use the font "Futura Std" on printed Flyers (commercial and non-commercial use) without buying the font-license extra?

I use Photoshop and InDesign CS6 but the font is not included at my PC but at my MAC. Would it be legal if I create my flyers 1. on the Mac, 2. on both machines or 3.on none of them?!

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

The rights to use a font for particular purposes is governed solely by the End User License Agreement (EULA) of the font provided by the font vendor or foundry.

In the case of Futura Std, if you licensed the font directly from Adobe individually (no longer available) or as part of the Adobe Font Folio product (still available), there were no additional licenses, royalties, or restrictions against use of that font (or any in that family or in the case of Font Folio, of any fonts in that product) for any printed material (including on commercial products such as tee shirts, mugs, etc.) or embedding the font in EPS or PDF files, even if those files were given or sold to others.

On the other hand, if you licensed the same font directly from other sources, the licensing requirements may be entirely different, including additional licenses for use of the font on commercial products or in electronic formats (such as PDF) distributed for profit.

Bottom line is that you must read the EULAs for each font for each type vendor / foundry to ascertain what is permitted with what type (pun intended) of license. And surprisingly enough, although ignored by most, this includes fonts bundled with an operating system (such as MacOS or Windows) and applications (such as Microsoft Office).

          - Dov