Congratulations - that makes no sense at all and is even contrary to what other people mean by 'personal'...

There are 3 common terms in the industry

Personal - not for profit or gain of any sort (your CV, your party invitations, lost cat poster, home decor etc.)
Business/Commercial - everything else - ANY case of being paid for your time or the work itself
Resale - reselling the actual font as-is

I have no idea where 'private' fits into that - even you don't seem to know the difference, certainly having read your terms I have no idea - I don't think you'll find many people using your work as you think they will...

That makes no sense - personal use would include things like CVs or party invitations or missing cat posters - they're not really 'private'.

End of the day, to use anything for commercial purposes you need specific permission to do so. You need the author to have said "Commercial use acceptable" or words to that effect ("Free for any purpose" or "Free to use" with no caveats listed anywhere would also work for me).

Absence of any permission is not a default 'yes' tho - you cannot say "well they didn't say I couldn't do it".

My 10p? If I couldn't contact the author, I'd take the 'free' next to the font alongside a lack of caveats in the download to say it was OK to use - but YMMV.

Worst case, they'll see it and ask you to stop using it...

No-one suggested otherwise did they?

It's worth noting that a few fonts are more specific about what they consider 'personal use' but if it's not specific, I think people know that personal means 'just for you and yours' and not for any sort of gain (either for your work or FROM your work).

I can only echo the comments above - the site is a massively useful resource and given it's age, it would be hard to retroactively change a lot of stuff...

I really just wanted to clarify the situation and/or see if there was a way of clearing things up both for people like myself and the hard-working artists who are giving us their output to use...

That's v.useful to know - thanks!!

Now to try to explain all this to the local club who've decided to market themselves commercially with my 'free' art :(

Do uploaders have to agree to any terms when they choose 'Free' or 'Free for personal use' etc?

It's just that would cover a lot of bases in terms of them not being able to pursue people later - esp. if you could arrange to include a copy of the terms they agreed to in the downloaded zip files?

I love how I'm "complaining" when asking a perfectly reasonable question - one that a lot of other people SHOULD have been asking but clearly don't care about...

No idea why I should buck that trend, end of the day I spend a fortune every year on software licences, font licences, music licences etc. whilst a significant proportion of other content creators are clearly "pirating the fuck out of everything in sight" - why I'm trying to stop that tide I've no idea really - more annoying still when you're accused of it because you're trying NOT to do it.

I realise daFont doesn't make the fonts - it is, however, a high profile distributor of them and, as such, could make a useful contribution to the whole situation regarding font licensing, make it easier for creators to pursue those who violate their terms and generally contribute to making everything work better.

If dafont are happy leaving it as-is tho - well, not everyone is willing to do the job properly I guess...

I've found a couple of great sources of fonts through dafont - people who make their licences clear and offer a great range of free and reasonably priced stuff - overall it will be easier just to stick to them in future - problem solved for me.

I'd noticed that BUT I've seen cases of fonts marked 'Free' which then went on to state "not for commercial use" or "not for redistribution" and, in one case (which I cannot now find) which included in the zip a txt file which said that "any use of this font is subject to licences available at our site"!!

I'd therefore assumed that 'status' wasn't really helpful and probably not in any way 'legally binding'??


There's nowhere on the site which says "if a font is marked 'free' then it's free for any use - this licence was agreed by the uploaded and cannot be rescinded" - that I can find at least??

Obviously that bit of text is no help if someone comes along in a year's time and accuses me of 'stealing' their work either - but something in the ZIP file which stated that it came from dafont where it was held on a 'insert type here' licence would be more useful perhaps??

Another way of saying this is - when a font creator isn't specifically stating the licence (in the zip or on their site), can we assume anything based on dafont's agreement with them as uploaders??

I don't really think explaining the concept of font licencing to people who aren't digital artists/designers etc. would ever work - hence why I prefer to use 'truly free' resources or DIY everything...

I've been approached by a lot of people who've had logos etc. designed elsewhere and want me to replicate them in some form (DVDs/CDs/websites/games etc.) but it's clear in many cases that the fonts and other resources are copyrighted and require licenses that the people don't have (and probably know nothing about) - it's that sort of thing I don't want to perpetuate myself...

Given the multiplicity of uses for Fonts (and other graphical resources) I think we need more practical and clear licencing - you cannot expect someone to know that artwork that had done 'for free' cannot be used commercially...

I think a lot of people probably use dafont thinking that because it's all 'free' to download that it's 'free' for any use too - that needs clearing up as well perhaps??

Since koeiekat has decided to be condescending, rude and ignorant (keyboard warrior with a cat fixation - there's a novelty) I'll explain WHY I ask.

I lot of work I do (for free) goes into websites or games which are personal (not for sale/non-commercial) - however, said websites and the sites hosting them/the games will sometimes run ads and I cannot always control what a client does with my work once they have it...

I therefore like to understand clearly what the terms of use are and prefer to use resources which are offered 'free use'. I never assume anything is 'free beer' and I always credit people (check the comments I've left here for people in the past).

If you look at a site like freesound.org, you'll see that they make it very clear that people uploading work are permitting free use of that work - this means it's a useful resource and you don't have to spend eons finding out licensing terms on websites written in languages you don't speak!

It would be nice to have something that clear here - for personal/commercial/redistribution terms - if it exists, I can't see it...

and koeiekat - try being condescending again and I'll not be so polite...

I must have looked at a dozen yesterday but just quickly searching you find something like this one

http://www.dafont.com/funky-chunky.font

No comment or info - Nothing in the zip - no site (in a lot of cases sites are listed but dead and again this is a bit of a dead end).

Cat owners eh?

The licence of which you speak is simply the terms under which the copyright to use the font is offered - you can try to separate the concepts if you like, but the problem remains the same in that we've no idea what the creator intended (and thus no idea how they'd respond to your using the font).

Many fonts on dafont don't specify a licence (happier now??) at all and I can't find a default licence that their creators would have agreed-to when uploading their work.

I'm not suggesting anyone should be giving anything away - but uploading fonts with no indication of licence is a massive grey area and renders the effort moot (as you cannot assume anything - even personal use)

Many font designers do include licences - but even then, I've read lengthy licences which talk about distribution and resale (permitted or forbidden) but do not discuss personal/commercial usage terms (again, you'd be wrong to use those fonts in many cases!!)

I think some clarity on the issue would be nice - is all.

dafont is an excellent resource, however a lot of people contributing fonts don't state terms-of-use for their fonts (either on the site or in the downloadable zip).

I've no idea where that leaves a font in copyright terms - it could be argued that by making them freely downloadable and not setting-out any terms you're permitting any and all use of the font (including commercialuse or even resale) - it could also be argued that the complete opposite applies and that no use of the font is permitted beyond looking at it!

It would be nice if dafont could make it clearer what the default usage of fonts is where authors don't state one - because otherwise the bulk of fonts here are, essentially, useless...