So, First FontExploiter (sorry, Explorer), now Fontcase, a new font manager from Bohemian Coding. Fontcase claims to offer you a more Mac-like experience, and from their 14 day trial, I would go along with that. It feels like a modern Mac OS X application, in the same way as the Apple-made applications such as iLife and iWork do, rather than in the way older applications that come from a conventional Mac Classic or Windows environment. It is slick, and has encouraged me to download a few other font managers and run them through their paces.

This little article is, however, about one particular feature, one that is causing a stir and reheating age-old font licensing arguments. Just like pork, some things just can’t take being reheated this many times. You see, Fontcase allows you to share fonts over Bonjour — the idea being that, assuming your license is supportive of it, installation and distribution of fonts for the sake of consistency and ease can be done without server-based technology.

Now, far be it from me to point an accusing finger at individual parties who may have another reason to be moaning on about this feature, but let us have a think about this. Firstly, people who illegally distribute fonts don’t give a shit if they use the web or email or Fontcase or file sharing or P2P or FTP or flash disks or removable hard drives or local area networks or SMB or punchcards. They will just use whatever they feel like — they are copying typefaces. Is not this the point? Is not the point that people will break EULAs for a whole host of reasons, irrespective of the technology? Surely the point of Fontcase’s font sharing is that it enables institutions to easily distribute its licensed fonts easily?

I have no doubt that people will abuse Fontcase. And I have no doubt that far far more people will not abuse Fontcase, and will find it a useful tool. Heck, you know what, it might even encourage proper font licensing — if you save a few thousand dollars on not having to buy super-expensive font server technology (which right now is shockingly overpriced for what it actually does — shame on the lot of you), you might just spend the cash on that site license. Don’t believe me? One of the last things I did at the medium-sized charity I used to work for was arrange font licensing for several hundred workstations from a top foundry. That license cost less than a font server. Remember, most organisations do not have a need for huge libraries of typefaces — their brands may only require at very most a handful.

Get a grip people. People copy fonts — just like they do music. It isn’t ideal, but it will happen. People who make CD-Rs are not responsible for music thieves. Hard drive makers are not responsible for software thieves. And Fontcase will not be responsible for font thieves.
Updated: January 28, 2009 — A nice man changed my mind on the editing of licensed fonts.