Hello, I was asking myself a question about the font rights.

Windows has a lot of different fonts for default: Comic sans, Courier, Arial, Dejavu, so on. And others installed by other softwares. Are these fonts avaiable to use commercially and freely in my games?

Cheers,

Ventura

No, the fonts included in Windows are not for distribution in your own software. However, if your program does not distribute the fonts and simply accesses ones already installed on your customer's computer, that's fine.

If you need distributable fonts, you'll have to either license some from a vendor or find some free ones, such as the ones here: https://code.google.com/p/ankidroid/wiki/FreelyDistributableFonts

I'm a fan of the Liberation Fonts.

Thanks for the replies.

yes, I just want to use it in my games and then to sell the game, but it's good to know about the distribution and sell of the fonts too :)

Note that if you take a font and turn it into a texture or SpriteFont or similar, you are making a copy and would need a license.

Google has tons of free use fonts though, some of them very impressive imitations of the paid ones.

Fonts and their licensing get complex.

There is the typeface itself (the glyphs and squiggles) taken independently, the functional design of the typeface together as a whole, the data file that contains the code and data, and the programs that convert the data file into something for display. It isn't just copyright that gets involved, there is also trademark, trade dress, design patents, and other design law.

Be very careful of the exact licenses.

Generally you are allowed to make use of the fonts, permitted to distribute the rendered glyphs, but not allowed to distribute the font files themselves.

This opens the door for groups to make font glyph sheets. Much like you would have the right to use the font on your local machine to generate a document, then distribute millions of copies of the document, similarly you can GENERALLY be allowed to make a document with all the glyphs you need and distribute that document (but not distribute the original file).

Some licenses allow you to distribute the font package with your product. Some (very rare) licenses are very strict and forbid even the use of glyph sheets.