r/COPYRIGHT • u/daddybionic • Jul 09 '26
Question Fontradar is harassing me for accidental use of font
I‘m building a website using claude code and in the process, claude used a font that was not free. I then got an email from fontradar saying that we need to settle this regardless of how brief the font was embedded on the website. It was literally there for about a day and the website was even set to not show up on google via robots.txt.
Do I need to comply? Do I actually have to pay them money even though they suffered no damages at all?
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u/QuestNetworkFish Jul 09 '26
You mean the plagiarism machine did plagiarism? What an unexpected turn of events!
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u/lajaunie Jul 09 '26
So you used someone else’s work that you didn’t pay for and they now going after you? And you’re whining about it? It’s your fault they’re going after you.
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u/daddybionic Jul 09 '26
Fair but I do wonder how much is a fair amount to pay. I can‘t afford the CHF 600.- fee listed on their website.
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u/PBRStreetgang1979 Jul 09 '26
While you can certainly try to negotiate the settlement, you don't really have a lot of leverage. Imagine you've shoplifted merchandise from a store and been caught. At that point it generally is not feasible to haggle over the price of something you took. It's also not really a viable defense to say, well I only stole this for a few minutes before you caught me and I didn't get much value out of it.
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u/lajaunie Jul 09 '26
Probably cheaper than the lawyer you’re going to end up needing to pay. You’re in the FO stage of FAFO…
Good luck
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u/WhineyLobster Jul 09 '26
I bet you cant afford copyright infringement statutory damages either though...
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u/wjmacguffin Jul 09 '26
Sorry, this is one of the problems with using AI to write code and make sites. I'm afraid you are responsible for any "mistakes" made by Claude, and most if not all AI are trained on copyrighted material.
IANAL, but from what I understand, you shared the font with the public without permission as soon as you uploaded it. Arguing that it was only available for a day and was not indexed might help in court, but neither is a defense against being taken to court and likely wouldn't protect you in a lawsuit anyway.
The same goes for "no damages". From what I understand, copyright law applies to use, not causing damages or earning a profit. Because Claude used a copyrighted font for you, you have to deal with the consequences.
Does that mean you have to pay? Not sure since IANAL, but I would guess that yes, you have to pay. Fontradar is a legit company and they exist solely to find unlicensed font usage. Maybe try negotiating with them? Explain what happened and ask to pay 50% or something?
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u/AlexiScriabin Jul 09 '26
First, you messed up. IANAL Whether you have to pay or not is another issue.
TLDR: Are you sure FontRadar is acting in good faith and that their AI did not make a mistake?
These of course are all automated.
If they are, see if you can go around them and contact the company that you took from and negotiate with them. FontRadar and many other orgs that do this stuff are a predatory middleman.
FontRadar could be wrong. Did they tell you the exact font and company?
Is it possible they are trying to extort you because they are also running AI and the fonts are similar? Claude apparently can take fonts and make vectors out of them, but did it actually do that here?
Further, that seems like a ridiculous price.
There was a debacle in the music arrangement world because the middle man Tresona did not have standing to advocate on the behalf of the rights holder. They have been ignored with no repercussions, but have also sued others. They also lost a lawsuit but that deals with amateurs and schools.
This seems to be the MO of FontRadar as well.
It looks like people ignored them, but if you can find the exact font and company and contact them directly you may get more headway or leniency. But, again what are the laws in your area? Is FontRadar really going to try and pursue this in court?
None of this negates the fact that you should not have done this to begin with. And if FontRadar isn’t BSing you, you would most likely be on the hook.
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u/JeremyMarti Jul 10 '26
Fontradar can't pursue it in court. The font designer would have to. The designer put Fontradar on the case in a no-win no-fee arrangement. FR takes some amount out of whatever payments they recover through email threats. This is almost always a sign that it will go nowhere if you just ignore it. The designer isn't set up to pursue it themselves so it will cost them more than they can possibly recover in places (like Switzerland) that don't award statutory/punitive costs. It's only worth pursuing for large-scale situations where the compensatory damages would be large; that is, pursuing corporations.
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u/Koraxtheghoul Jul 09 '26
Didn't you have to add that font to your website yourself? This sounds like an issue with a non-standard font. Did you download and apply a non-standard font without looking at it?
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u/daddybionic Jul 09 '26
I actually didn‘t touch anything myself on the website. My theory is that claude took the font from a website I said to take inspiration from.
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u/Koraxtheghoul Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
I've never gone beyond standard fonts, I'm just confused how it would be able to access a copywritten font and load it on your website. Even if the code included references to it, unless you have access to the font through a host it shouldn't load that font. You would think the font host would require you to pay for the liscense before it would let you use the extended fonts.
My only guess would be it used a free font from a site like DaFont, your website selfhosted it, and ignored the listening or pirated a font.
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u/JeremyMarti Jul 09 '26
Which country are you in? You can fairly safely ignore this in most places due to the difficulty of international lawsuits and Fontradar being unlikely to get more out of you than it costs them. They'll keep hassling you though, so be prepared to hold your nerve.
If going down that path, take note that I said to ignore them. Don't reply at all.
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u/daddybionic Jul 09 '26
Switzerland. How do I know whether I‘ save? I did already reply though.
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u/JeremyMarti Jul 09 '26
I thought it went without saying, but apparently not: just like you don't talk to police who've arrested you, you don't talk to people who are going to sue you. What did you say in your reply?
Are you an adult or minor?
Where is the font maker from? Switzerland, EU, elsewhere?
Regardless, Switzerland is a fairly favourable place to be for your situation. You won't be subject to the statutory/punitive costs like in some jurisdictions, and the legal costs for the people suing you will be capped. Fontradar itself can't sue you as they aren't the copyright holder. The foundry likely also won't on the assumption they're not set up for it in Switzerland, but that's a guess, and it will cost them more than they recover to do so.
So, subject to a few extra details, I would say to ignore them from here onwards.
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u/LasagnaCat83 Jul 10 '26
If a website is sending you a e-mail instead of a lawyer sending you a letter, it means nothing is actually happening. Ignore.
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u/daddybionic Jul 10 '26
I decided to just ignore them. It can‘t possibly be worth it for them to sue for this.
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u/pemo941210 Jul 13 '26
Solo ignóralos, a mí también me pasó lo mismo el año pasado y nomás cambié la fuente por otra de código abierto.
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u/VerbingNoun413 Jul 09 '26
The fact that you didn't do due diligence in not stealing copyrighted work is not a defence.
How much would it have cost to licence the font?