Font licencing for Arial & co.

Hey there,

I thought about what font I want to use for the mobile app, I'm developing right now. I stumbled upon this thread and now I'm wondering what kind of fonts I can use without purchasing a license for them.

As for the default font (Arial) Unity converts the font to Liberation Sans for builds, so there are no license problems with that one.

But how about windows fonts like Times New Roman or Arial itself?

And is it important how they are included, so if I include the font data or if I just use pre-rendered textures of them?

What about I just don't include the font data, what font would I use for android or iOS then? I guess with that approach I would act like most websites do by getting the font from the system and therefore having no problems.


I guess in general most apps don't give a f*ck, but I'm interested how to do it properly.

Best regards,
Johannes

 

Wow. You've got to be kidding me. As much as I dislike just taking other people's stuff and using it I actually figured all of these fonts commonly found on today's computers (and actually for a long time now) were completely free as in PD.

Kind of blows to mind to think that even the dang fonts themselves need to be licensed. Most of the fonts I use in games are made by me in a 2D paint program so I guess it doesn't really effect me much and I will be sure to continue with that practice. Alternately, I have found some cool free fonts that I sometimes use as well.

Thanks for posting this. It brings awareness to an issue that I doubt many people ever consider. Especially licensing a font at the price of $750 for use per one game title. That is insane and I would never even consider it. Just go into a paint program and knock out a font or two.

 

Yup, I agree, I think most people (even graphics designers) don't care that much about licensing fonts, but apparently that's what you are supposed to do if you want to release a title.
There are some sources out there with free or PD fonts (Google Fonts and Fontsquirrel to name just a few), but it still is interesting how to handle the fonts you are used to working with.

 

Generally, as long as you have a license, and are not including the outlines, you are ok. It was a bigger problem in the flash days, as flash embedded the font (outline) data in the app, effectively distributing it. Many fonts now either include digital embedding in the license or have a separate license to cover that. Basically, make sure that any font you use, you know what their license is. Honestly it is rare that it would be a problem, but it is always best cover your bases. If it costs you an extra 25$ now, better than having to deal with legal costs down the road.

There are many fully free fonts, as long as you get them from reputable places. (a lot of the free font sites have fonts they can't distribute). Google fonts is a great resource.

 

dafont is one we had a problem with in the past. At the time (don't know if it is still true), they don't actually vet the content that gets put on the site. They had some fonts where people had taken a popular new font, renamed it and posted it as free with the ability to donate to the author.

I/we tend to stick to either google fonts or fonts.com Fonts.com isn't free, but it is a trusted publisher.

 

Thanks for the answer! I see the big problem with redistributing the font by exposing the file itself. Apparently that is no problem with Unity, so it doesn't make a difference if I use the font in uGUI or if I just provide a pre-rendered texture, right?
Also thanks for pointing out the problem with dafont, I will change the link to google fonts.

As for OS Fonts, I found this discussion. The answer there claims that, as long as you are not redistributing the font you are on the save site. I tried to find the license information for windows fonts and found a list of all windows fonts with their license buying links, but sadly there is no specific information on what you are allowed to do with the font.

There is also some more general information about the windows fonts out there:

I'm still not sure if I can use Arial or other windows fonts for my game... is there an easy answer to it?

 

So I have to have permission and a license to use Arial font? Why would Unity Include it then if I need to have a license lol? Or does Unity have a license to have it with Unity for *us* to use?

 

I've used fontsquirrel.com for Number Crunchers and HordeRush. They have a fairly good selection of free-commercial-use fonts, but it's not the most wide selection. If I absolutely fall in love with a font, I wouldn't mind paying to use it, as long as it's a reasonable price.

Are google fonts free for commercial use?

 

Yup.
https://www.google.com/fonts#AboutPlace:about

 

Correct. It was more of an issue for flash and things like that which included the outline source. Unless you are using a plugin in unity that packages the outline data as well, you should be fine

 

TrueType fonts are included in Unity builds, if you have "Include font data" checked for the font. If it's not checked, it attempts to load the font from the user's system.

--Eric

 

For commonly included fonts like Arial that isn't an issue, but this is a wrinkle devs need to be aware of.

 

As for Arial Unity uses a similar technique as websites. It only references to the font and hopes that the operating system includes the font. If Arial is not included in the OS it uses liberation sans instead (See Default font asset).

Can you give me any link or resource that clarifies that... That's actually the question that is bugging me all the time.

Thanks for pointing it out, I've already found the website and I will use it for sure if I can't get certainty on the subject.

Not that I'm not willing to pay for the hard work of typographers, but I'm certainly not willing to pay as much as e.g. Microsoft/Monotype wants for the font (490$ for one mobile app license... and that's per font style).



That's just absurd.

 

There are fonts available under free licenses such as those on the Open Font Library.

https://fontlibrary.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Font_Library

 

If you are going to use something that comes with Unity, I wouldn't worry in the slightest, that's Unity's job to care about the lisence.

If on the other hand you want to import a custom asset, treat it like any other asset. Make sure you obtain a proper lisence from a reputable source. And abide by it.

 

I am genuinely surprised that no one has brought up open source fonts yet.
The easiest way to go is to look for fonts licensed under the SIL Open Font License (short: OFL). Alternatively, look for other open source licenses and check them beforehand. I don't know all of them from the top of my head, so you need to read up on them yourself.

What exactly do you need @Johannski ?
A system font?

• Oxygen - The created for KDE 5
  
• Roboto - Google's Android font
• Ubuntu - The font that the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu uses for their desktop environment

A font for documents?

• EB Garamond - Very nice looking font for documents

Oxygen and EB Garamond are licensed under the OFL. Roboto is licensed under the Apache License 2.0, while Ubuntu has its own license, which is inspired by the OFL. I am not 100% sure about the Apache License 2.0, so you'd have to look into the details yourself. The Ubuntu font license is very permissive (I use it for my game).

If all you want a simple font like Arial, just go with Oxygen. Being licensed under the OFL means that you are free to do whatever you want with the font, as long as you

• retain the OFL notice, even if you distribute it in a modified form
• don’t sell them on their own
• don’t claim they were your work.

The first point can be solved the same way its done in Android. If you look through the system settings, you'll find an option to view the open source licenses. (For me it's in "About phone/Legal information/Open source licenses")
So you just add a "Third party" or "open source licenses" button somewhere in your game's menu/options to display them.

 

I agree, I don't really need to worry how unity does it, but I wanted to understand how they are able to provide the arial font without having to pay for it... Which I figured out

@TheSniperFan : Thanks for the long answer. Others already pointed at OFL and I guess that really is the way to go. I'm still wondering if it really is necessary to purchase a font if you don't expose the outline (like @zombiegorilla suggested). I can't find any reliable information about that.

 

That will depend on the license of the font. You'll have an easier time to find one that allows this for free, but this isn't something that applies universally to all fonts.

 

Just to be clear, I said as long as you have a license. If you have a license (purchased it, or came with a package you purchased) you can use it to create work, that is ultimately what typefaces are for.

You cannot redistribute a face however. Including it in software (a game), where the entire font source is included is redistribution. That is where you need to check the original license. Some foundries / creators allow for this use, some have limits and some require a special license.

Or just use (verifiable) open source fonts.

 

I advise against using either because they are horribly overused and imho look amateurish in games.


It would be a very bad joke if anyone ever got sued for including Arial with software since that font is a ripoff from Helvetica anyway:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial

Imagine how the typographer who created Helvetica must feel about that...

You could still use that site to discover fonts and then see if they have a link to the author's website and get the font straight from the source. There are quite a few legit font autors who upload their stuff to dafont.

 

Does Unity exclude fonts without the proper license type (like a print or preview license, for example) - I am having a problem with certain fonts not showing up and my developer is trying to tell me it is because Unity will not include fonts in builds without them having a proper "games distribution" font license. However I cannot find any information here or in the Unity manual to back up his claim. I'm curious if any of you have any info concerning this? Thanks!

 

Tell your developer that he's talking out of his butt (would use other word here, starting with letter that is also beginning of the alphabet and ending with two copies of the letter right after R but mods here are babies). And how exactly would Unity check for that, anyway even if it was true?

//edit: Snarkiness aside, it's most likely a technical problem that dev in question is too lazy/too incompetent to fix.

 

You open the copyright pandora's box and soon come to realise practically everything is in breech of copyright regulations, even downloading a scream of youtube - nope gotta get the rights for that, to using the red cross on medkits (apparently it is a no no) as kindly pointed out by Martin_h, the rabbit hole gets deeper, if you wanna stay on the right side, then guess what, a custom font will have a ridiculous usage price tag. There are free ones but I suspect most the ones on dafont are not for commercial usage i.e for games unless otherwise stipulated as mentioned before.

 

Are you doing what eric posted above, which is checking "include font data".
If you see the image in the documentation here, youll see " Incl. Font Data". Have that checked, hit apply, and then try.
http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-Font.html
I have not tried this, but seems like it could be the issue.

 

Yeah I was starting to wonder the validity of his argument myself which is why I wanted to get to the bottom of it here(and hope a Unity developer could chime in to 100% confirm) - My developer in question claims to have done some tests using "fonts with non game licenses" and also with "fonts with game licenses" and that the builds using the non-game licensed fonts(via UGUI) were essentially not being included but instead, falling back on a boring system font like Arial.

 

There are (or there used to be) some problems with some fonts when used on android, but it was a weird way that android handled things. There shouldn't be any problems using fonts (from a technical side) related to license. More than likely there is just something wrong with the font itself. There isn't technical difference in a font between usage, it is a standard format(s).