Hi, I have written a short booklet on how to read music. I want to publish it for free on the internet. I used the default Verdana font which I love. But I read earlier today that this is a copyrighted Microsoft font. Does anyone know if it is legal fo me to publish my book? If not, I will have to change the font, is this even possible? Thanks for any thoughts on tnis.
I would imagine their copyright only restricts other outfits like LibreOffice or OpenOffice from including this font with their software. Stopping the average user from publishing documents with a font included in their own word processor would be kind of self-defeating.
A DuckDuckGo search for "windows fonts copyright" gave this Microsoft typography FAQ page as its first result.
This paragraph seems relevant.
Can I sell things I print from Windows or make using these printouts, say a book, logo, advertisement, report, t-shirt, or crafts that use fonts that come with Windows?
Unless you are using an application that is specifically licensed for home, student, or non-commercial use, we do not restrict you from selling the things you print and make using the Windows-supplied fonts.
The OP mentioned "publish it for free" so it appears that MS won't have any issues no matter what version is used. This item is not being "sold". I gave up on all the "Office" stuff decades ago. There's plenty of open products that allow you to do the same and don't spy on you.
Someone replied to your post.
| HarSel
1 June |
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The OP mentioned "publish it for free" so it appears that MS won't have any issues no matter what version is used. This item is not being "sold". I gave up on all the "Office" stuff decades ago. There's plenty of open products that allow you to do the same and don't spy on you.
@dpoulton 's response is the correct one. You can use the fonts in print and on electronic (ebook, PDF, etc) output. And you can sell that output or distribute it for free.
What you CAN'T do is, say, for example, host the font on a webserver so that you could post your work on a webpage and have it rendered in that font. It's insufferable that they do this, but that's what they do.
Good free alternatives: Inter and Open Sans. There are plenty of others since Verdana is a pretty generic system font. But those two are particular attractive and similar.
Google Fonts is the best repo for open fonts out there. If you want to install those two fonts on your system …
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Inter
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans
Hi Todd
Great answer and good news for me. The book is written now so I'm glad I don't need to change it. I didn't really choose Verdana - it just was the default in Joplin- but if I write another booklet I'll look at the fonts you suggest. Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.
Under US copyright law, the visual appearance of typeface letterforms is not copyrightable, whereas the embedded font file in a PDF is protected as software by its license agreement. Exporting a PDF from Joplin on licensed Windows or macOS generally permits standard subset embedding of Verdana, though using an open-source font like DejaVu Sans or Inter avoids proprietary font embedding restrictions entirely.
Once you publish your music booklet, you automatically hold the copyright to your text and notation, so you can remove unauthorized commercial copies yourself for free under 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(3) if pirate scraper sites put your PDF behind a paywall. Pairing your original indexing timestamps from Wayback Machine and Google Search Console with the free 512(c)(3) guide on DMCA AI lets you format a compliant takedown notice for the host.
Adding a simple Creative Commons noncommercial notice on the first page of your Joplin export lets readers share your music booklet freely while giving you clear standing if a scraper site tries to sell it.