For the last months I’ve been getting increasingly annoyed with font piracy. Tonight, I googled “Frutiger Arabic” and the 2nd, 6th, 7th, and 8th google results were for piracy sites. Now isn’t this just mad? Am I the only one who thinks that Google has an ethical responsibility here? These sites show blatant disregard for intellectual property, and are promoting a culture of indifference and opportunism. Why can’t we “flag” these results like one can on Youtube? It seems to work so well there and Google is such an amazing service.
This brings up the question of Google ethics. Does Google have a moral and ethical responsibility or is it a plain and lifeless programming code that is ungoverned by law? If we know that a site is breaking the law, and Google, by giving it a high page rank, is unwittingly promoting it, would that make Google an accessory?

I think we’ve reached a point where we are almost completely dependent on either one of the search engines. It has become an integral part of our online lives. And when an entity plays such a big role in our daily lives, should it not be governed by our laws?

Just a thought.

(Also, this is only a personal thought. I don’t have my Linotype hat on :)

7 Responses to “Google ethics”

No, Google does not have an ethical responsibility here. Google catalogizes the Internet the way it is, or the way that people use it. That’s the idea anyway. If you see that your fonts are being pirated, the lesson is for you to learn. What steps can you take to educate the users of your fonts (licensed and unlicensed). How did these unlicensed copies “get out”? If these links disappeared, you would be in the dark. It is better when everything is out in the open.

This is not Googles responsibility. By the way, this would also be called censorship. Why are you not happy that people like your font so much they are copying it? Do you also think like the music industry that every pirated copy is lost money? People who copy stuff wouldn’t buy it otherwise. Most people cannot just afford to buy fonts for personal use. But they will certainly give those fonts cheap advertising. Companies that really want to use the font will pay for it. Get real, if you’re good you get copied. Imagine a life where nothing could be copied.

I checked today and now the first position is for a piracy site. Not fun at all.

> If you see that your fonts are being pirated, the lesson is for you to learn. What steps can you take to educate the users of your fonts (licensed and unlicensed).

There’s not much to learn here. At this point in time, there’s nothing that can be done against font piracy. We have to trust our clients and unfortunately, that trust is often broken.

>Why are you not happy that people like your font so much they are copying it?

I am very happy that people like the design. It is a great compliment. However, type designers are trying to make a living out of this. We can’t make a living if people continue to use piracy sites.
The comparison to music is not really valid. The scale of that industry is phenomenal. The font business does not generate that level of income. Also, the music industry makes a significant portion of its revenue through concerts and merchandise. We do not have that here.

> Get real, if you’re good you get copied. Imagine a life where nothing could be copied.
True but unfortunate. Anyway, thanks for the comments!

You have to learn to defeat Google - search results manipulation, that’s what SEO (search engine optimisation) is all about. If you fill Google’s search pages with results that are not of much use to anyone, then you migrate the pirate sites to much lower rankings, while simultaneously trying to promote your own sites up the rankings. Unfortunately that makes the search web of much less use to everyone.

nadine, not only your frutiger arabic suffer from piracy,
also your other arabic type, and other arab type designer,
at least by e-mail and forums.
any way.
I’d like to ask you about the way for licensing
bigvesta arabic for commercial use.
i’ll be happy if you post a topic for full information, price and wieghts

Palatino Arabic in Preview

http://graphics4arab.com/showthread.php?p=21263#post21263

Nadine,

I hacked what you say through Google and it was not possible to obtain any font although one can think that through their nice titles, as download Frutiger Arabic through Rapidshare or other fake servers/services for dummies and naïve persons…

I agree that it is a nightmare to be copied, however it should not be an obsession of font designer… Consider the case of MS or Adobe and see how they work wonderfully in spite of a real and continuous piracy…
Why, as users, we have not enough information about a font from Linotype? We have excessive prices for Arabic fonts? Those are the questions!
As a publisher, we bought every Font that we use; for example, we will use Frutiger family for the titles in the most prestigious book in University Physics, together with Yaqout and STIX. As a Type investigator, I would obtain a lot of information about fonts and their use: how I can do if I have to buy every font as I have no information from the supplier…

I think that before talking about piracy and obsession, Arabic font designer and TypeFoundries have many things to do in respect of Font presentation and promotion…

Something to say?