Oh wow, I didn't know that. Thanks for the heads up, Heaven Smiley.
Yeah, I was sure quite a few people didn't know that, which is why I felt a little concerned. It's easy to forget this, since you have so many of the things at your fingertips, but every font file is hand-made, whether it's hand-drawn or made on a computer. That means that a person had to sweat over making each one - coming up with the general design, making sure everything is well-proportioned, and that it all just looks uniform. From an outsider's view, they're just letters, but quite a bit of time and effort goes into typefaces to ensure that they don't just look like chicken scratch and that they are visually appealing.
Every time you download a font file from a legit distributer, you're typically given a text file outlining what you can do with it, even if you go to one of the bigger sites that is more strict about things but is generally more in-your-face about your rights. When you download it through a second-hand source, of course, you get none of that, leaving you in the dark as to whether or not you just pirated something.
Oh, and I can't believe I forgot to mention this, but the Lost Type Co-Op is one of my favorite resources, period. It's a site put together to give you a really nice curated list of typefaces, all free for personal use. It was actually made to help design students still in school put together higher-quality designs without needing to strain the wallet, when money might not come so easily. The League of Movable Type does something similar, but it hasn't been updated in a while. Still has some really nice typefaces you can download for free, though.
