I downloaded a free font to use to sign my digital artwork with. When I use it in Adobe Illustrator get a message saying:


The font NockerCranky could not be embedded in the PDF document because of licensing restrictions. Stroked text will not be visible.

I don't use PDF. But I'm wondering if I am free to use this font as my signature on my artwork.

The Nocker Cranky was made with Fontographer which program had as default setting restricted license embedding/no embedding allowed. This setting needs to be changed into preview and print embedding allowed before you can use it as you want. A work-around is making a bitmap of your sig and embed that bitmap in your artwork.
Yet, considering that Nocker Cranky is such rubbish you are much better off with the Darling which is a Brendel Informatik (extinct foundry) copy of the Castcraft (also extinct foundry) OPTIKismet which font is very well made and does not have the embedding restrictions.

did you find Nocker Cranky on dafont ? i don't really think so...

http://www.dafont.com/nocker-cranky.font...

... and cranky it is ...

Thanks folks, but my main question is can I use the font as my signature without infringing on the property of the one who created it. I am able to embed it ok.

The one who 'created' id didn't create it. He/she/it made/used a lousy scan of an existing typeface to create his/her/its rubbish. So has no design rights whatsoever. Thus if tou want to use that rubbish to sign your artwork no-one will bother you.
But you didn't read, did you? I wrote Darling, extinct clone of extinct and of good quality. Still in coma?

Thanks.