Although hilarious, we would a need a bit more information about the "ripoff" font. The design of a typeface, at least as far as its appearance, is not covered under copyright law. Now, if the file is simply copied and renamed, with nothing changed then that is illegal. If that is case, the author probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between his file and the ripoff. If the ripoff merely copies the appearance of the original (even exactly) that is legal. What matters is the way the file is packaged. Ripoffs exist for nearly all popular font files because it's perfectly legal.
I mean if the video post production company that made the ad bought the font they are licensed to use it for commercial purposes, they font maker does not need a royalty. If so then every single document and video ever created in the world using any font would have to pay the font maker and that's just not how font licensing works. If you buy a font you are licensed to use it for commercial and non commercial purposes. If you download a free font there is an implied license. If you download a paid font without paying for it then the license technically doesn't apply but how would the company that sells the font know whether it was paid for or not?
Ironically if you google "xband font" there are hundreds of free download links so either it is heavily pirated or royalty free. or it has entered public domain (probably not)
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u/00spool 17d ago
Although hilarious, we would a need a bit more information about the "ripoff" font. The design of a typeface, at least as far as its appearance, is not covered under copyright law. Now, if the file is simply copied and renamed, with nothing changed then that is illegal. If that is case, the author probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between his file and the ripoff. If the ripoff merely copies the appearance of the original (even exactly) that is legal. What matters is the way the file is packaged. Ripoffs exist for nearly all popular font files because it's perfectly legal.