American company Monotype, which owns the rights to Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana, Tahoma and Helvetica fonts, reportedly blocked Russian users from accessing its library on the site. They are shown an access ban.

what is known

Any company that uses the font in commercial activities must purchase a license from the copyright holder. When it comes to these fonts, this can be done on the official website. But now it is partially inaccessible for Russian users.

• On April 11, it was learned that the Monotype font library is not available to users in Russia.
• In Russia, the Monotype site opens, and the message about the ban appears only when you try to open a page with a catalog of fonts.
• When using the VPN service, the page opens and the user accesses the fonts when registering on the platform.
• The source states that access may have been closed before, but no official notification has been received from IT companies.

This message is seen by Russians on Monotypefonts.com / Photo “Durov’s Code”

No comments from the owner yet. Apparently, this is a ban on purchasing new licenses for developers from Russia. However, this is not a direct ban on the use of fonts by Russian users, although this cannot be ruled out in the future. For example, Microsoft has purchased a license to use these fonts, so they remain in Microsoft Office. And if the user has the program, he will be able to use the font.