Anyone know of a good (free) substitution for the following fonts:

Americana
HTF Gotham Condensed Book

Thanks,
SM

You won't find these in legal ways.

even if they are just similar and not blatant copies?

I'm kind of curious about this too. There are dozens of free fonts out there, that are similar to others. Why is there such disdain for those who are looking for free versions of commercial fonts? I don't understand this. And don't give me that "if you sold a font, and everyone copied it for free" either.

If you want to hear music of let’s say AC/DC and you can’t afford to buy a CD. Then you could ask for similar music which is free. Then you could find some hard rock music from bands which share their music for free. They also have heavy guitars, some nice licks probably, maybe a strong voice. Similar in some cases but not the real. If you like that, great. But there are also others who ask for »free downloads« of AC/DC. That would be illegal. And then there are some users who rip the AC/DC-CDs and offer them under a new name, maybe DC/AC or something else. Same file, new name. In digital world no problem to do, but to live with it. See the similarity?

I think you hit the nail on the head. I see a huge disdain for people who ask for "similar" fonts, only to be told to suck it up and by the real thing. I'm the last guy who would tell someone to do something illegal, so I don't (and still don't) understand why "finding that cover band who gives their music away for free" is a bad thing.

Having said that, do you know where I can find a reasonable approximation of "Americana SB-XBold" by a "cover band" for free? ;)