No the insanity is 100% the legal status of fonts and typefaces in copyright law. They contradict each other.
> pay for them. Otherwise, use free fonts
I did state I have paid for some fonts. I wasn't mad about the idea of paying money BUT the prices are extravagant.
TLDR for bellow: Things for creative people shouldn't be so expensive they are then reserved for only the elite or corporate world.
I am an opinionated person and my career has been varied and one of my favorite roles is being the "tech guy" who is also the "creative person" of the company. So I take the official photos for my company and I also produce videos. I use to do it with my own personal equipment but now I have much better gear that the company has purchased for my job.
I have also owned my own recording studio and had a small record label. My bands ended up touring the world, getting on MTV (When they use to still play music videos) and move on to bigger Indie Labels. (Side note: the most these guys made was $7,000 per person a year after touring cost).
I own expensive gear and I have thousands of dollars in plugins and programs I personally own. Many audio plugins are $300+ and the software I have paid over $1,000 for one program.
These plugins shouldn't cost more than $50. Applications should be free with option of paying in for certain extra non-essential features. (Resolve was a $3,000 video editor 4 years ago and now it is available for commercial use for free and $299 for the professional features which I rarely use).
I want everyone to have the ability to fulfill their creative outlets and if they have the ability to make a living awesome. People who make the tools should also be able to make a living, but not so expensive and overpriced that they cater to only those who have expendable income or corporate money to spend.
The instrument Kanye pirated is a synthesizer called Serum. It's $190. So one way that has changed is they have a rent to own model. You pay $10 a month and you use it right away, but it also takes $10 off the price. You stop using it and stopped paying for a few months no problem just start right back from where you ended.
Another thing in music is now the plugin package I paid $1500 for in 1999 is now $400 and on sale you can grab it for $180 and you have access to the same plugins that Grammy Award winning artist use.
Why should it not come to fonts where people can pay $5 per font or say $50 for a complex font. Many of these $200+ fonts are initiative changes of a dozen other fonts.
I believe fonts are awesome and well worth it BUT they shouldn't price the vast majority of people from using them legally.
A Sakai water-quenched sashimi knife will set you back $1200. A perfectly adequate yanagi can be had for $60. A truly skilled, dedicated cook might own the $1200 knife, because they work with it all day long and having the best, most finely-crafted knife available to them might make the work more pleasant. At the same time, rich morons who treat knives as Veblen goods are bidding up the prices on the Sakais. Is it "fair" that only the elite and the wealthy get the water-quenched sashimi knives, while plenty of serious journeyman cooks make do with the $60 knife?
If the answer is "no, it's not fair", that's fine. But I'd be interested in an argument about the insanity of font licensing that didn't depend on us relitigating capitalism.
You are priced out of all sorts of things. Among them: very high-end typefaces, which are licensed to ad agencies, Fortune 500 company marketing departments, and major periodicals. You can shell out some extra cash to use the same fancy typefaces they do, or you can use serviceable free typefaces.
I'm not seeing the insanity or the unfairness.
To me, typefaces are almost the platonic ideal of a good whose pricing can't really reasonably be challenged. Nobody needs them. Every deployment of a commercially licensed typeface is a vanity. Vanity is fine! But it's never an entitlement.
No the insanity is 100% the legal status of fonts and typefaces in copyright law. They contradict each other.
> pay for them. Otherwise, use free fonts
I did state I have paid for some fonts. I wasn't mad about the idea of paying money BUT the prices are extravagant.
TLDR for bellow: Things for creative people shouldn't be so expensive they are then reserved for only the elite or corporate world.
I am an opinionated person and my career has been varied and one of my favorite roles is being the "tech guy" who is also the "creative person" of the company. So I take the official photos for my company and I also produce videos. I use to do it with my own personal equipment but now I have much better gear that the company has purchased for my job.
I have also owned my own recording studio and had a small record label. My bands ended up touring the world, getting on MTV (When they use to still play music videos) and move on to bigger Indie Labels. (Side note: the most these guys made was $7,000 per person a year after touring cost).
I own expensive gear and I have thousands of dollars in plugins and programs I personally own. Many audio plugins are $300+ and the software I have paid over $1,000 for one program.
These plugins shouldn't cost more than $50. Applications should be free with option of paying in for certain extra non-essential features. (Resolve was a $3,000 video editor 4 years ago and now it is available for commercial use for free and $299 for the professional features which I rarely use).
I want everyone to have the ability to fulfill their creative outlets and if they have the ability to make a living awesome. People who make the tools should also be able to make a living, but not so expensive and overpriced that they cater to only those who have expendable income or corporate money to spend.
Right now in music production the way these instruments are used by many is through piracy. Heck Kanye West used a pirated instrument created by Deadmou5. https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/dance/6897291/deadma...
The instrument Kanye pirated is a synthesizer called Serum. It's $190. So one way that has changed is they have a rent to own model. You pay $10 a month and you use it right away, but it also takes $10 off the price. You stop using it and stopped paying for a few months no problem just start right back from where you ended.
Another thing in music is now the plugin package I paid $1500 for in 1999 is now $400 and on sale you can grab it for $180 and you have access to the same plugins that Grammy Award winning artist use.
Why should it not come to fonts where people can pay $5 per font or say $50 for a complex font. Many of these $200+ fonts are initiative changes of a dozen other fonts.
I believe fonts are awesome and well worth it BUT they shouldn't price the vast majority of people from using them legally.