Just for my understanding, as soon as someone buys a cut of a font and uses it in a web context, it is basically "out there" and could technically be downloaded by anyone visiting that website since there is no font DRM right?
Is this mainly targeted at people making fonts for print?
That's true but the real business of font is not selling to any average people but to designers and companies, as part of corporate identities.
In fact, it's quite easy to download some non-free font (let's say Helvetica) and to use it on your web page. Then
- either it's a personal page and very few people will see it (and even less notice that it's the "real" Helvetica and not a free simili-Helvetica)... so there's almost no risk to be sued for copyright/stealing. You wouldn't have bought it anyway.
- or it's a professional web page (or design or...) - high traffic - then you can be sure to be sued if you use it but didn't buy it.
Same for business card: nobody will really notice if you use a stolen font on your own business card but you can be sure that everybody will sue you if your business is to print business cards and you propose fonts without licences
I was also curious so I've taken a look at it (but not in detail) and it looks to me like it sends what you type to the server that generates an image in real-time using the font, so you don't have the font itself, just what it's going to look like with your text.
