I am interested in using the font Starstruck in a commercial project. However, *nowhere* have I been able to find licensing information for the font (downloads only include the font itself, no Notepad or other licensing info). The closest I can find is that it is a "restricted" license (not sure what that means) and its embeddability is also "restricted". And unfortunately, nowhere can I find who actually created the damn thing. (The name "Daphne Dampener" is associated with the font on another site, but a Google search more commonly associates that name with a different font using the same name.)

As far as I can tell, my options (in order of preference) are:

1) Find the original creator and license the font for commercial use
2) Find a similar font that is either clearly free for both personal AND commercial use, or at least provides clear licensing info
3) Modify the original font enough that it is "distinct enough" to qualify as its own font (for example, modifying the lowercase letters, as the original font uses identical characters for both upper- and lowercase).
4) Use the original and hope for the best (this really isn't much of an option, but...)

If anyone here can help, I would greatly appreciate it.

(More details on this quest of mine are available here: http://samurai-ko.tumblr.com/post/60372188860/in-search-of-a-fonts-creator-please-help-tumblr

http://www.dafont.com/starstruck.font

Most likely, this font was sumitted to DaFont by someone other than its author. According to the information on the details page, it was submitted "before 2005", and details in the font file suggest that the final version was generated on March 19, 2002. There is no designer information included in the Font Info, and embedding is not allowed.

In 2002, almost every font fell into one of three categories:

1) Commercial - a license fee was required to both download the font, and use it commercially.

2) Shareware - A small fee, usually around $5, was required for commercial use. This information was usually included in the header.

3) Freeware: Personal and commercial use of the font was allowed, without payment to the author.

The prevalence of 'free for personal use' fonts is a relatively new phenomena. Most non-commercial designers used to offer their work as freeware, to give back to the Design Community for the freeware fonts, designed by other people, that they collected and used. They often did this anonymously, with no designer information contained in the font file itself.

There is a reasonable chance that Starstruck might be a clone of an earlier font. It may also be a 'semi-original' design - To me, it looks like someone took an existing font, and added flourishes.

The embedding settings will probably limit the ways that you can use this font. If you know how to change them, you'll likely have no problems using it commercially. Someone might claim to be the author, but how would they prove it?

I don't tell people how to change embedding settings in forum posts. Some of the other DaFont forum moderators, the ones who are also designers of Free for Personal Use fonts, will bite my head off, if I do. Limiting the embedding of a font is a way that a font author can restrict the use of their font beyond typing text in a Microsoft Word doc. A lot of FFPU fonts are strictly advertising for the licensed version. They allow you to type a text sample, but not much else. It's common for older freeware fonts to have embedding restrictions, but a legitimately purchased licensed version should be able to be used without restriction.

Much obliged for the info, Meta.

I do know how to modify the font, and admittedly it wasn't my first choice to do it, but considering I've looked damn near EVERYWHERE for the owner, I'm thinking it's my next step. I agree that this is most likely a modified font - I've found a couple that look like the base letters before the flourishes were added.

Re: limited embedding, I've been able to use it in PhotoShop, so it's not just limited to Word.

Still, at least now I know a bit more than I did before, and God knows this is rapidly starting to look like I've done MORE than my due diligence in trying to play by the rules.

Thanks again!

Limiting embedding may have been the default setting in Fontographer 4.1 - I'm not sure. Without changing the embedding settings, you probably can't print the font, or allow it to be seen in an electronic document, by someone who does not have the font installed. I think you probably knew that; I wrote it for the other people reading the thread who didn't know.

~bobistheowl