Turns out that when you go through 4000 fonts and read all of their licenses, you start to see that licensing is a woefully shameful business.  The real crime here is that we need to state common-sense stuff ("don't steal what I've made, don't sell what I put hard work into and not give me any money in return, don't claim you made what I've made", etc) into legal-ese.  Are we really not human enough to respect one another's work without having to put it down in writing?

Well, happily things like the Creative Commons License, the OFL, and certainly the GPL, have come about, simplifying matters.

But some of the licenses bundled with some of the fonts were beyond common-sense, and well into sheer absurdity.  Some made me sigh.  Some made me LOL.  Some just made my head hurt.

Enjoy this small sample:


"this is centware, if you make money using this font, i want 1 percent of what you make."

--And yes, there was no contact information given

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"It may be used without royalties for any reasonable purpose."

--Definition of "reasonable", anyone?

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"This font is free, but should not be redistributed.  Use it all ya want, tell your friends about it, but 
refer them to my site if they want the font  ---   http://www.geocities.com/timessquare/7089/"

--First of all, why make a font if you don't want it to be distributed? and secondly, are you sure you want to point people to a free geocities website (now, of course, killed by Yahoo)?

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"please do not redistribute this font in any shape, form, or fashion."

--Perhaps this author should not have posted the font on the internet?

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"If you want to use this font to make something really cool, just email me about it to get permission." 

--Does the author really expect me to keep track of their email such that any time I use the font in something "cool" I can ask permission?  Perhaps I should also email and ask for permission to have a lunch break as well?

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"If you use this font, please inform me about that."

--This, in a license file.  So to follow the letter of their law, I must email this author any time I use the font.  I have over 2000 fonts on my computer, am I really supposed to cross-reference what font I use and see if I'm supposed to email anyone to let them know that their font was used on some random design?

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"you can copy and give it away to your friends as long as this readme-file is included with the postscript data.  Don't try to distribute it!" 

--huh?

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"If you wish to use this as part of a graphics project then you must include the words - 'FONT BY STEVEN SILVERWOOD' in massive letters." 

--This one COULD have been a joke because the rest of the file was pretty funny, but, it's in a license file -- so how can one ever be sure? this author might be serious.

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EOF



LICENSE
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This license-of-shame file must never, ever be not re-distributed.  If you have read it, then you are bound to email it along with every email message you ever send, for the rest of your natural life.  If you fail to do this, you must txt msg me and apologize.  However, you are exempt from this if you use GNU Linux, or are a human with some amount of common sense.