Using the Galvji font on a website

Ah, they moved it. New link for contacting Apple Legal:

Legal - Contact Us - Apple

The issue here is the licensing terms for macOS. This block is from the Sonoma license, but it's been the same, word for word, for quite a while.

E. Fonts. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, you may use the fonts included with the

Apple Software to display and print content while running the Apple Software; however, you may only

embed fonts in content if that is permitted by the embedding restrictions accompanying the font in

question. These embedding restrictions can be found in the Font Book/Preview/Show Font Info panel.

I underlined a couple of main points. Regardless of the fact the font itself has no licensing text, it is included with the OS, so you have to refer to the OS license.

It clearly states you can use any fonts included with the OS while using the OS. So, you can view and print them to your personal device as much as you want. But there's no provision that says you can use them for commercial purposes, such as book publisher would need, or for a web site.

It also states you can embed the fonts per a given font's restrictions. With this font, there are none. Which means you can embed the font in a document (PDF, word processor, etc.). Embedding is not term normally used for the web. It is kind of a gray area to define a font used on the web as embedded, but the license isn't clear. I also looked online a while to see how others viewed such a distinction. Basically, most people who deal with these types of licensing issues daily see such use as linked, not embedded. A fine line, but they all suggest contacting the font's licensee for clarification.

This a font created by Apple Inc. and Michael Everson. There are no embedding restrictions and the license field is blank. Which suggests it's open to freely use.

But, font restrictions can be all over the place. Best to ask Apple Legal.

Apple - Legal

haicu wrote:

I don't see way to contanct Apple with a question like this there.

You might try contacting Michael Everson, who made it, and see what he thinks.

https://www.evertype.com/

Tom Gewecke wrote:

BobTheFisherman wrote:

The OP is asking about a specific font, galvji.

Yes, and he wants to know whether Apple will have any problem with his taking their font and converting it to WOFF and hosting it on his web server. I am not totally sure the answer is "no". Are you?

I do not know the answer from a legal perspective but if it were me, I would use the font-family property in CSS to ensure the viewer's browser displayed the page/site in the way I wanted it displayed.

The font-family property can specify several fonts as a "fallback".

If the browser does not support the first font, it tries the next font.

For example:

font-family: Galvji,, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

But if the OP wants to pursue legal advice I guess he can delay his site until that is forthcoming.

Tom's suggestion is a very good one. You only have to link to a Google font to use it. It isn't on your site, or in your possession at all. Just find one that's similar to Galvji and use that.

A hunk of Galvji:

Compare that to just a few Google fonts you could use that are very similar:

Signika

Don't waste your time trying to contact Apple.

You can use the font any way you want. You just can't "copy" it. So you can develop your web site to use the font, specifying it in CSS. The only trick is that you'll need to find a fallback font in case the user doesn't have the font. The font is included in recent versions of iOS and macOS.

haicu wrote:

. I think we will go and look for another font for now.

Have a look at Google's Noto fonts, they make it really simple to use a web font they host so everyone sees the same thing.

If windows/android devices do not have this font installed, they will substitute something else, so you may want to test how your site looks when that happens.

Also note that Galvji is specifically intended to be used for the Cherokee language script. If your site is in a different language, it should not be a problem, but it is really better to use fonts intended for the language of the site.

I'm not sure what you're using to build this site, but if you have any Adobe CC apps, you get access to their entire font library as part of the monthly fee.

Their license for printed and web use is pretty wide open.

https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/using/font-licensing.html

In short, don't get hung up on this one particular font. There are - literally - thousands of sans serif fonts that look nearly identical to each other. Take advantage of Adobe's license and use a font from their very large collection.

Read etresoft's post.

Maybe I'm not understanding what it is that you want to do and why you are having an issue. You can use whatever font you want to develop and code your website. If the viewer's browser does not support that font their view of the website will use a fall back font. You need to specify alternative fonts in your html using the font-family property.

BobTheFisherman wrote:

Maybe I'm not understanding what it is that you want to do and why you are having an issue.

When you convert a font to WOFF format, you can host it on your web server and then the viewer does not have to install it on their machine and there is no need to worry about lack of local support, all viewers will automatically see your chosen font. Whether the font maker allows that kind of format conversion is the issue.

Tom Gewecke wrote:

BobTheFisherman wrote:

Maybe I'm not understanding what it is that you want to do and why you are having an issue.

When you convert a font to WOFF format, you can host it on your web server and then the viewer does not have to install it on their machine and there is no need to worry about lack of local support, all viewers will automatically see your chosen font. Whether the font maker allows that kind of format conversion is the issue.

I understand about WOFF: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_fonts/WOFF

The OP is asking about a specific font, galvji.

BobTheFisherman wrote:

The OP is asking about a specific font, galvji.

Yes, and he wants to know whether Apple will have any problem with his taking their font and converting it to WOFF and hosting it on his web server. I am not totally sure the answer is "no". Are you?

Kurt Lang wrote:

Embedding is not term normally used for the web. It is kind of a gray area to define a font used on the web as embedded

I notice Google now uses the term "embed code" when it tells you how to use the (Google-hosted) web font version of one of its many Noto fonts.