Linotype, Bitstream and other big companies are a bit like major record labels, with catalogs full of reliable classics like Helvetica and Futura – the type of type sold in packages to software companies. There are also hundreds of smaller players: indies, in music-business terms. Emigre is one of the best known of these (with hit fonts like Mrs Eaves), along with Hoefler & Frere-Jones, House Industries and P22. Such firms may sell licenses for one person to use a single font for $50 or less, or sell packages of fonts for multiple users to design firms, ad agencies and the like. (They also create custom typefaces for specific clients, for much larger fees.) Meanwhile, as Tamye Riggs, executive director of the Society of Typographic Aficionados, points out, the digital revolution has also spawned tools that make it easy for almost anyone to create a new font and sell it for as little as $2 – or even give it away as a form of promotion. Not surprisingly, font piracy is pervasive. ‘’Just like MP3’s,'’ Riggs says.

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