Font license agreement

The terms every hippopotype font license shares: who holds it, what it grants, what it never allows, and how it ends. This is version 2026-09 of the text. A license is governed by the version recorded on its receipt or license certificate, which does not change when a later version is published.

This agreement is between hippopotype, the seller named in the terms of sale, and the license holder named on the order. It applies to every font license bought or claimed on hippopotype.com, together with the schedule for each license category on the order. The receipt, or for a free claim the license certificate, records which schedules and tiers were granted and at which version of this text.

The license holder is the person or organization named in the license holder details at checkout. Only the license holder and the people it authorizes under a schedule may use the fonts. A person buying for an employer or a client names that employer or client as the license holder; buying under a personal name for company use is not permitted.

The license is perpetual. It does not expire and there is no renewal fee. It ends only by termination under this agreement.

Each schedule sets its scope in tiers. A tier grants its own allowance and every smaller allowance below it, so one license covers the smaller uses too. When a use grows past the tier on the order, the license moves to the tier that covers it and only the difference between the two tiers is paid; the same license continues for the same styles and the same license holder, and nothing is bought again. Moving up is arranged by contact where the store cannot do it.

The licensed files are the font files delivered for the styles and formats listed on the order. A license covers the styles listed on the order and no other style of the family.

hippopotype grants the license holder a non-exclusive, worldwide license to install and use the licensed files within the scope, tier and allowance of each schedule on the order. The license stays with the license holder and moves to anyone else only as the transfers section allows. Uses that no schedule on the order covers need a further license. hippopotype keeps all rights in the fonts that this agreement does not grant.

Anything the license holder makes with the fonts, such as documents, images, logos, videos, printed matter and rendered text, belongs to the license holder and may be used and distributed without limit. The restriction is on the font files themselves, never on the work made with them. Converting text to outlines or images does not need a further license.

The license holder may not redistribute, sell, rent, lend, sublicense or give away the font files, in whole or in part, in any format. The license holder may not modify the font files, convert them to other formats, or make derivative fonts, except where a schedule allows subsetting for delivery. The font files may not be placed where the public can download them, used to build a font-creation service, or used to train a model that generates fonts.

The license may be transferred once, in full, to a successor of the license holder, for example after a merger or a sale of the business, by writing to hippopotype with both parties named. The previous holder deletes every copy after the transfer. Any other transfer needs written consent.

A contractor or agency working for the license holder may install the licensed files for that work only, counted against the license holder's allowance, and deletes them when the work ends. A printer, sign maker or similar service may receive the files for producing the license holder's own work. An agency that keeps the fonts for its own or other clients' work needs its own license naming the agency as holder.

hippopotype may publish new versions of this agreement and of the schedules. A license is governed by the version recorded on its order, which the receipt or certificate shows. Where updated font files for a licensed style are delivered to the same account, they stay under the version on the original order.

The license ends automatically if the license holder breaks a restriction and does not cure the breach within 30 days of written notice. On termination the license holder deletes every copy of the licensed files. Work already made with the fonts stays with the license holder.

hippopotype delivers the font files as described on the hub and replaces files that are defective or wrongly delivered, as the terms of sale set out. Beyond that the fonts are supplied as they are, and hippopotype is not liable for indirect losses arising from their use, to the extent the law allows. Questions go to [email protected].

This agreement is governed by the law of Poland. If the license holder is a consumer in the European Union, the mandatory consumer protection rules of the country where the consumer lives still apply and nothing here takes them away. Disputes go to the competent court under those rules. Where the license holder is not a consumer, the court for disputes is the court competent for the seller's registered office in Warsaw, Poland.