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Letters We recently went to a party thrown by a typography firm. It was great, there was a limitless supply of barbecued beef and everything, so we won't hear a word against the industry. We were therefore very upset to learn that small businesses are harbouring pirated fonts, we even cried hot, inky tears. You were less sympathetic:

"Violations occur when a person sends a font to another person who does not have a licence for it. That often happens if someone is sending a document which needs a font which is not installed on the recipient's machine."

Oh, so now I am responsible for somebody using a Microsoft Office function and I should pay fines because some software maker decided to make this function available to the public ?

I suggest that the font makers take up the issue with the parties that are responsible in the first place : Microsoft, and maybe Adobe.

As for me, I already paid a license for my OS, and another for Office, so leave me alone. I refuse to take responsibility for a tool I didn't ask for being used by millions from whom I didn't ask a thing.

Pascal.


Working in design, I've often wondered about this. While we purchase licenses for fonts that we need to create new designs, we often receive artwork from other design houses which include fonts. Presumably we need licenses for each and every font that passes through our system like this. But then it gets a bit silly - do I really need a license for each font in a design which lands on my desk for thirty seconds for me to approve before passing on to the printer? Maybe that's indicative of the culture, but if the font houses are careless and come down heavy-handed, they risk alienating users and turning us off purchasing their product, just like the music industry has.

Perhap's we could make some extra cash by setting up a Typography Industry Ass. Of America to hunt down font sharers.


Next up, scammers are targeting domain name owners who might be interested in selling. A mere $99 will get you "appraisal software" to gauge the domain's value. Except it won't.

Mr. Leyden, The 'appraisal scam' as it is so well known in the domain community is nothing new. I don't believe it has ever been confirmed but it seems like there is probably only a few groups doing this constantly emailing owners feigning interested, asking for an appraisal and then disappearing. The more common method is to offer 2-3 accepted sources for appraisals, 1-2 well known ones such as Sedo and then a second or third which they themselves own which costs a lot less. Upon looking at the three sources the victim (presumably) chooses the least expensive one... theirs. And that is the classic appraisal scam. It has been around for many years and you should be able to easily find documentation of it. Regards,

Kevin Ohashi


I don't have a lot of sympathy for companies that run affiliate schemes and then open their innocent eyes wide and throw their hands in the air when someone spams/scams to bilk affiliate revenue. In my experience, those businesses almost never actually try to get rid of bad eggs - they do the minimum necessary for plausible deniability and rake in the laundered profits.

If you ask me, the very act of running an affiliate program makes you culpable. It's impossible to run one without knowing that people will take advantage of it, and it's impossible to run one that people can't take advantage of.

The companies using affiliate programs are no better than the spammers/scammers, and it's about time people started calling them on it.

All that just to get in the term "bad eggs" near Easter. For shame.

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