Helvetica Neue Light with @font-face .. legal?

Question

My team and I have developed a site using the Helvetica Neue Light font face via @font-face in our stylesheet.

We're curious about whether it's legal for us to do this and who owns that font (if anyone?) Does anyone know how we can find this out - google just shows lots of sites trying to sell us the font.

I understand it's a system font on most mac computers, so maybe its license is pretty open?

``I understand it's a system font on most mac computers, so maybe its license is pretty open?`` Now thats a strange assumption :D — stefan, Mar 30 '11 at 00:23
I may be completely wrong, but if you're not embedding the actual font or serving it as a download and just using it if its a system font for a user wouldn't that be legal? — Mark, Mar 30 '11 at 00:39
The fact that Apple has licensed it for inclusion in Mac OS X does **not** mean that its license is "pretty open". It's still a proprietary font, and that means you can't serve it up as a download on your webpage. Although as @Mark suspects, it's perfectly legal and valid to specify it in CSS as the font to use when the user *does* have it installed on their system. — Cody Gray - on strike, Mar 30 '11 at 05:10
Did you find a license to use on web? (I want to server the fonts to be downloaded to the client's computer) All i could find is a PageViews based license for Helvetica. I want a pay-once license — Uri Abramson, Aug 18 '13 at 11:28
On Windows 7+ you can use "Segoe UI Light" which is pretty close to Helvetica Neue Light. just a suggestion. — John Henckel, Dec 08 '15 at 16:29

score 54 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 30 '11 at 01:16

If you are just referencing the users system fonts then the licensing requirement is on the User.

If you are providing the font then you (or your client) will need to licence the Font -- even if it's a free font there will likely be some form of licence.

@font-face uses two forms of reference: LOCAL which references the user's system font and URL which effectively uses a copy of a font which you provide and as there is very little point in using the @fontface rule if you aren't going to provide the font then it's almost certain that you'll need to actively obtain a licence.

for example:

@font-face {
  font-family: myHelveticaLight;
  src: local("Helvetica Neue Light"),
       local("HelveticaNeue-Light");
}

Here you are only referencing a user's installed system font and therefore have no have responsibility for obtaining the licence.

In the following example you are also providing a fallback copy of the font so you must have actively obtained a web licence for that font (or rather your client or the website owner will need to)

@font-face {
  font-family: myHelveticaLight;
  src: local("Helvetica Neue Light"),
       local("HelveticaNeue-Light"),
       url(HelveticaNeueLight.ttf);
}

Thanks,some real good info there. In the end we decided to sign up to http://webfonts.fonts.com just to avoid having the worry and to make life a bit easier. I think there are some other similar services online but that one had the font(s) we were looking for - in this case Helvetica Neue Light — John Hunt, Mar 30 '11 at 03:01
Actually, Adobe owns that font, just like Remixz has said. Here is the url to the Adobe web page which confirms this claim: http://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&event=displayFont&code=HLNQ10045000 — Mladen B., Jul 04 '13 at 08:01
If i buy the license for 29$ will i be able to server it to clients? — Uri Abramson, Aug 18 '13 at 11:10
@uri-abramson If you don't understand the terms of the license, the only party you should have clarify it for you is the licensor or your lawyer. — Chris Bentley, Aug 18 '13 at 13:55

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 30 '11 at 00:35

12

Apple pays for its system fonts, so the inclusion of a font in Apple's operating systems doesn't tell you much. That particular font is owned by Linotype and sold for profit. A quick Google tells me fonts.com offers Neue Helvetica Light as a Web font, so you might take a look there.

answered Mar 30 '11 at 00:35

Chuck

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Thanks, that's exactly what we did! – John Hunt Mar 30 '11 at 03:02
If i buy the license for 29$ will i be able to server it to client browser? I'm asking this because fonts.com call it a Desktop license for some reason and i can't figure out if i can use it woth @font-face (url) – Uri Abramson Aug 18 '13 at 11:27
@UriAbramson: On the box where you buy the font, there are two tabs at the top. Make sure you have "Web Font" selected, because the "Buy Font" option *is* the desktop version. – Chuck Aug 18 '13 at 21:06
But the pricing on Web Fonts is based on PageViews! isn't there a one-time buy and use on website license? i'm asking because i couldn't find anything like that. – Uri Abramson Aug 19 '13 at 09:11

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 30 '11 at 00:37

Just took a look, and its actually Adobe who owns it, and they sell it for money. So, my best guess is no, you couldn't legally use it for free. I have no idea if Adobe licenses it, though. Maybe you could try and find one that's licensed for web use, and is similar to Helvetica?

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 30 '11 at 01:14

Embedding it using @font-face would probably be illegal (unless the foundry that owns it has extended their EULAs). Helvetica is pretty widespread as it comes standard with mac and Arial (almost identical) is standard on PCs. If you aren't using any of the more fancy weights that come with Helvetica Neue, I'm sure you could just specify Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif and it would show up fine on most machines.

You could try searching Font Squirrel for a substitute, or use images if the font's EULA is restricted. TypeKit also offers many classic fonts for web-embedding for a fee. Helvetica is not one of them, but you might request them to add it.

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 30 '11 at 00:40

I believe there is only one official Helvetica Neue, and, as stated by Chuck, owned by linotype. So, you'll have to ask them. (Last I checked, they don't allow it, but I've since heard they've started opening up some of their font licenses for @font-face use...)

But, in general, you need to read the license of the individual font. That's the only way to know. Even then, licenses can be rather vague, so you usually want to go back to the foundry and ask them directly.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 26 '14 at 22:47

No.

You may install one copy of the Software on one Computer file server within your Internal Network for the purpose of downloading and installing the Software on up to the Permitted Number of other Computers within the same Internal Network,

Which is 5 for this specific license.

Helvetica Neue Light with @font-face .. legal?

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