Avoid Font Copyright Pitfalls: Free Commercial Fonts and Legal Usage Guide

Font Copyright Overview

Under the PRC Copyright Law, a font is a protected work. Commercial use requires the rights holder’s permission; personal learning, research, classroom teaching, news reporting, official use, public display, preservation, performance, and conversion to minority languages or Braille are exempt.

License Categories

Commercial fonts : Must be purchased (e.g., Microsoft’s licensed use of Founder’s “微软雅黑”).

Commercial‑authorized free fonts : Free for commercial use after obtaining written authorization (e.g., Founder’s Black, Song, FangSong, Kai).

Commercial‑free fonts : No authorization required (e.g., Source Han Sans, WenQuanYi).

Common Infringement Scenarios

Using a licensed font file in a product that is redistributed (PDF generation, printed material, image export) without a proper license constitutes infringement. Referencing a font only via CSS font-family:"微软雅黑" is safe because the font is loaded from the client’s operating system.

Embedding the font file in a website so that visitors download it directly is an infringing act.

Free Commercial Fonts

Source Han Sans (思源黑体) / Source Han Serif : Open‑source, covers Simplified/Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean. Repository: https://github.com/adobe-fonts/source-han-sans.

Founder series : Founder Black, Founder Song, Founder FangSong, Founder Kai – free for commercial publishing but require written permission from Founder.

Zcool High‑End Black : Collaborative font released by the Zcool platform; additional free fonts are available.

Wang Han‑zong series : Selected fonts donated by Prof. Wang Han‑zong that are free of copyright disputes.

Taiwan Ministry of Education series : Three traditional‑character fonts (no Simplified Chinese support).

WenQuanYi : Open‑source Unicode fonts widely used on Linux/Unix, similar coverage to Source Han.

Guidelines for Software Professionals

Determine whether the intended use is commercial (e.g., revenue‑generating website, paid documentation, embedded UI).

If commercial, verify that the font is either:

Licensed for commercial use (purchase or written permission), or

Explicitly marked as commercial‑free/open‑source.

When using web fonts, prefer linking to system‑installed fonts via font-family. Do not host or serve the font files unless you have a web‑font license.

For PDF or image generation, embed only fonts that you have purchased or that are licensed for embedding (e.g., Source Han).

Installation steps: download the font package, unzip, double‑click the .ttf / .otf file to install on the OS, then select it in design tools (Word, Keynote, CSS, etc.).

Keep records of licenses or written authorizations to demonstrate compliance if questioned.

Reference Links

Source Han Sans repository:

https://github.com/adobe-fonts/source-han-sans