My wife, a paralegal, recently did a deep dive on fonts and discovered some info indicating that some of the web safe fonts in Site Designer may require a license for commercial use. There is a lot of conflicting information though. For years our site has used Big Caslon with no issues (complaints). I had never even given this a second thought as these fonts are ubiquitous and have been around for years, but we want to be absolutely certain that we remain above board.

Can anyone provide documentation or point us to an information source showing that the web safe (not Google) fonts in Site Designer are free for commercial use?

Thanks.

I'm not a legal expert, but perhaps the following thoughts may help.

The nature of web-safe fonts seems to be such that one is not using them at all in what one sends to the web server. Instead one is calling into use in the browser a font that is already on the computer of the person viewing the website. If the user's computer doesn't already have that font, a fall-back font that it does have is used instead. It is therefore difficult to see any licensing problem with using web-safe fonts in a website.

That, however, does not necessarily mean that one can use such a font on commercial material that is printed on paper etc. without permission, and perhaps it is that distinction which leads to a seeming conflict of information. With printed matter it is the person originating it that is using the font. With web-safe fonts on websites it appears to be the computer of the end viewer that is using the font.

The second paragraph above is based on https://www.coffeecup.com/help/articles … safe-font/ and https://wpastra.com/resources/web-safe-fonts/ .

If there is information that conflicts with the above, it will be useful if reference is made to it in this thread.

Frank

I would agree with Frank

I recently asked a similar question and about the same font, to my friendly notaries (speciality webites / internet)

Basically, the font is a system file for both Windows / Mac operating systems

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typefaces_included_with_macOS

so therefore no license needed, by simply using the font available from within Site Designer, If however you use a similar font but with a slightly different styling from another source (which you declare the link to from the header , or you downloaded it) then one needs to check the licensing terms and conditions from whomever you got it from.

Top & Bottom is if its from within Site Designer, then good to go

Wow, great answers. Thanks guys!