Bane of Baybayin Fonts

Several of my typeface designs has become so popular over the years that people tend to forget to give me credit for the fonts and neglect my copyright restrictions about commercial use. My commercial licensing prices are quite reasonable. And, if you're operating a non-profit or a student/school or just a small group of enthusiast/activists, you'll find me very agreeable and happy to oblige with giving you and your group permission to use any of my font for a short-run low-volume distribution (or even sales). I do appreciate the mention even in small print, but if you ask kindly, you don't even have to credit me or provide a link back to this blog or my site ( baybayinfonts.com ).

This has always been in every download page for my fonts ( especially at nordenx.deviantart.com ) :

“ © All of Nordenx Baybayin Modern Fonts are for personal and non-commercial use only. Please contact me at nordenx@yahoo.com for any inquiries about commercial use and licensing for branding, printing, publications, and/or other electronic applications.”

As it stands, I have sold four commercial licenses for my fonts; two for branding, one for specific font sets, and one major license for full use of every typeface I release publicly and privately. I take my role as a licensor seriously and will protect the interests of my licensees. This is why when one points out certain issues, I respond quickly.

Baybayin.com is my major licensee. I greatly appreciate that he is also pro-active with regards to protecting both his brand and art as well as looking out for people who commits abuses with unlicensed distribution & copyright infringement on my typeface designs. Recently he wrote:

“ A new Baybayin app was released recently but stay away! #1) It’s inaccurate and #2) The developers used fonts by Norman de los Santos (Baybayin Modern Mono and Baybayin Modern Unicode).  ... The developers are making money or released the app with the intent to make money via serving advertisements.”

 SOURCE: http://blog.baybayin.com/2014/07/30/stay-away-from-this-app-its-wrong-and-steals-work/
( I already emailed the company who designed the app. We'll see if they respond and how. )

I guess some folks either ignores or don't read my copyright terms or they just plainly lack ethics. This is not the first time this happened.

A couple of years ago, a popular and respectable Philippine Culture store carried shirts & tote bags that used my fonts prominently in their designs. I'm very happy that the store immediately responded to my email about the matter and promptly dropped the products from the company/designer who sold them the items.

Even Kristian Kabuay of Baybayin.com has to battle the big company "Walker Underwear Philippines" for theft of his personal font.
SOURCE: http://blog.baybayin.com/2013/08/17/walker-underwear-philippines-rips-off-artists/

Bottom line: I wish that people respect and value artists' & designers' work and give them the credit (or financial compensation) that they deserve.

For the most part, I wish that the general public would learn how to use the fonts properly and learn how to read & write Baybayin correctly and more proficiently.

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UPDATE: [Aug. 20, 2013] After a short disappearance from the Google Play store, the app is back up again. Updated photos suggests that some updates where made. A limited dictionary using Paul Morrow's Tagalog Stylized font shows that the app's author/s seem to know how to properly write in classical & traditional baybayin, even transliterating borrowed Spanish words correctly. Yet, the "translator" part of the app still uses my Baybayin Mono font and can not transliterate properly, it can't even "transliterate" simple words and names that it deems "foreign". *sigh... I sent another legal report of the copyright violation to Google Play.

 [Aug. 6, 2013] After a stern email & report to Google Play, the offending app has been removed from the Google Play store. Since I did not get any response from either company, I'm not sure which one pulled the plug.

Font Law & Licensing

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=capstone.inc.jaseltan.bayengapp.bayeng
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=baybayin

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