A former employee used a font that has a creative commons license which does not allow commercial use in a client project. I’ve reached out to the designer a number of times to see about buying a commercial license, but have not heard back.
Does anyone know of a way around this?
I’ve submitted a number of similar options and offered to rework all of the delivered but never published files for free, but they are stuck on it.
I don’t think there’s a way around it. The owner is the only person capable of giving you permission, but if you can’t reach that person, you’re stuck.
Congratulations on your honesty. You’ve made an effort and will make good on it if that person ever responds.
From a purely practical standpoint, though, the owner probably sees the font all over the place but has given up on trying to rein it in (speaking from experience). If you’ve informed the clients of the problem and they choose to continue using the font, that’s their issue. Anyway, in the U.S. intellectual property claims on fonts are largely meaningless given that font designs can’t be copyrighted under U.S. law.
Just an opinion (I’m no lawyer), but the issue here seems less related to legalities and more related to matters of ethics and honesty, in which you’ve already proven yourself.