Hi everyone,
I've temporarily disabled PDF sales (and map pack downloads), until I verify that the font usage is properly licensed. They'll be re-enabled in the next week or two while I make sure everything is on the up-and-up.
See the K&KA thread that prompted my withdrawal here: Digital Millenium Act of 1998; watch 'yer rears publishers
Hardcopies are still for sale via Lulu. There's a sale on currently, too, enter coupon code SECRET305 thru Friday and you'll get 50% off a second book.
PDF
Font foundries and their licensing was always a problem. It's a hassle to change layout for everything, but see if these can help:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fontsquirrel.com/
(I think this is aimed at web)
http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
(I think this is aimed at print)
Any plans for releasing more levels? I really enjoyed ASE1, but I want more!
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, more levels are coming. Being lazy, I write at the pace my players explore, so it's going to be a few more months before I get the next book out. Maybe February?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the links Scott. TeX Gyre Adventor is a good replacement for Century Gothic, but I could also just do that all as bitmaps - the font only appears on the front & back covers, and the first page. http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/TeX-Gyre-Adventor
ReplyDeleteStill looking for an alternative to Souvenir. Nothing really looks like it, but Sorts Mill Goudy is nice looking on its own. http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Sorts-Mill-Goudy
Adobe licenses Souvenir as embeddable for preview and print:
ReplyDeleteA font with an embedding permission of Preview & Print allows the font, either fully or as a subset, to be embedded in an electronic document solely for the purpose of viewing that document on screen and/or printing that document. While a font with a Preview & Print embedding permission (either through data in the font file or the font’s license agreement) may be embedded in an electronic document, the embedded font may not be used to further edit the document it is contained in or to edit or create other documents. Most fonts in the Adobe Type Showroom are set for Preview & Print embedding.*
That page lists "no embedding" as another licensing possibility, so I'd assume that you're OK to distribute the PDF. IANAL.
That's where it's confusing - you are allowed to embed in a file, but you cannot distribute the embedded font.
ReplyDeleteThat's what the "End User License: 5 computers" part means. Only five people can have that embedded font. You need to talk to Monotype & license the font for distribution in ebooks if you want to use Souvenir.
That is way way way way way too expensive for me. So PDF's will need to get a different font.
See:
http://www.monotypefonts.com/Services/FontLicences.asp?part=7
What's happened is that the software providers (Adobe) and font foundries are two separate entities. The software providers have made this easy-to-use software and provided licensed fonts, with restrictive licenses. There is absolutely no indication to the user that what they're doing is wrong, which is totally bogus on Adobe's part. Nobody else mentions this anywhere either - the only people who do are the websites of the foundries themselves.
There's the tiniest hint on Microsoft's web site that the fonts it distributes aren't redistributable, but that's not real obvious either:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/family.aspx?FID=29
And then of course there are the tons of "free" font websites that are full of fonts either pirated or with completely unknown licenses, which are all effectively totally useless.
Overall, font licensing is a nightmare for tiny e-publishers, as far as I can tell. I expect that almost everyone publishing PDF's is infringing.
OK, Adobe might not have sub-licensed in the same way Microsoft did. Microsoft fonts are definitely not embeddable legally as far as I can tell. Adobe's might be, but I need to get clarification on that...
ReplyDeleteThis is quite a rabbit hole you've led us down. I've read some conflicting info about Adobe's font licensing, with some speculating that licensing may vary for the same font depending upon how Adobe packaged it.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like there are safe options. I found a bunch of fonts without any licensing entanglements, although that still leaves you without an exact match of the old TSR look and feel.
I spoke w/ an Adobe rep via their web site, and buying that Souvenir font you had linked to is enough to distribute that font in an eBook. I have no idea how licensing works if the font is bundled with some other Adobe product. There are literally hundreds of licenses on the Adobe web site.
ReplyDeleteAnyway that covers 99% of my text, so it's just cleaning up the outer & inner cover pages and I'm good to go.