Fonts are not free. Not free in the sense that someone made them and has been or must be paid for them. Unless they gave them away. This is called font licensing and to put it bluntly it is a well kept secret.
Because a font file is defense-less. You get a TTF OTF or Type 1 file from a website or a friend, et voilà! You think you have the right to use this font commercially. There is often an embedded message in the font, and when you get this message from Linotype, ITC, it means you're using a font without permission.
Sometimes you get a font when you install your Operating System. Ok it implies the OS manufacturer gave you the right to use this font for the normal operation and this includes commercial use. You can happily print your company brochures with Arial and Times New Roman and Microsoft are ok with it.
Like software, it means you cannot resell Arial or TNR like they belong to you (I'd like to know who would buy them given that they have a fairly bad reputation as fonts), you cannot reverse-engineer them either. This is because their designer sold one big license for the design itself, and Microsoft passes this license on to you with the right to use them for private and business use.
Most fonts are not in that situation though. Gill Sans, Helvetica, Geneva, Onyx, etc. etc. (won't bother you with more than a few known names) are covered by a license. It means you need to pay to get the file, and then often you are limited with whether a third party is allowed to get them, or just print them.
When you create a picture with text, and give this picture for printing, you are transferring to the printing bureau something which cannot be used by them. It's ok.
Since Adobe Reader 4 fonts are embedded in such a way in PDFs that you can't retrieve them so it is acceptable to send a PDF for printing because your provider will not have access to the font file.
The subject of font licensing has one small light on for people without financial ease. Some people generously develop fonts which you can share, use for commercial use and some even have access to the source files (which is not relevant to me or you possibly, the other two maybe more).
You can find plenty of resources from www.scribus.net, but I'd like to express my gratitude to Hirwen Harendal, who delivers free fonts from Arkandis Digital Foundry:
perso.orange.fr/arkandis/ADF
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