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TrueType core fonts for the Web
Bad news: Web fonts program discontinued
Microsoft's TrueType core fonts for the Web are no longer available for download from www.microsoft.com.
Initial Conspiracy Theories
When the information was first discovered, initial reactions leaned towards conspiracy. Is Microsoft shutting down it's typography department? Is it a ploy to get more people to download Internet Explorer? Maybe it's some kind of strike on Apple?
A statement was released by a Microsoft representative and published on the popular type forum Typographica:"[T]he downloads were being abused -- repackaged, modified and shipped with commercial products in violation of the end-user license agreement."
The fonts are no longer freely downloadable from Microsoft officially, although they do still exist at the Internet Archive. In addition, the fonts ship with Windows XP and recent versions of Mac OS. They are also bundled with a free download of Internet Explorer. And, according to the End-user License Agreement, the fonts may be distributed freely as long as it is not for profit and they are true and complete copies. Because of this, they'll probably show up somewhere for download.
So the fonts are not really gone. But does their absence from the original download site signify some kind of bigger, secret operation at work?
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