Free software licences raise a recurring question for studios and corporate users: does the licence of the tool reach the work made with it? For Blender the Foundation answers in its licence page under the heading “Your Artwork”: what is created with Blender is the creator’s sole property, and all artwork, meaning images and movie files, including the .blend files and other data files Blender can write, is free for the creator to use as they like.[1] This article covers that statement, the limits the Foundation places on it, and the licences on the documentation, website and Studio content around the software. It concerns Blender artwork, output and content licences, not the licence of the Blender program.
Output belongs to the creator
The licence page spells out the commercial consequence. It states that Blender can be used commercially by artists, by studios to make animation films or VFX, by game artists working on commercial games, by scientists for research and by students in educational institutions, and says the GPL guarantees this freedom and nobody is ever permitted to take it away, in contrast to trial or educational versions of commercial software that forbid use of the work in commercial situations.[1] The FAQ gives the same answer to “Can I use Blender commercially?”: any creation made as an artist with Blender is the creator’s sole property and can be applied for any purpose, and this also covers the add-ons and Python scripts the creator writes.[2] The manual’s page on free software repeats that the GPL applies only to the Blender application and not to the artwork created with it.[4]
This position follows the GPL text distributed with Blender. Version 2 says that the output from a program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the program, independent of having been made by running the program, and that whether that is true depends on what the program does.[7] The Foundation applies this to Blender and states in the passages above that its licence does not reach the user’s artwork or data files.
.blend files
The FAQ addresses .blend files directly. It says the user may license their .blend files themselves, that the output of Blender in the form of .blend files is considered program output and the sole copyright of the user, and that the file format only stores data definitions.[2] The one exception it names is a .blend file that embeds Python scripts providing bindings to other libraries or facilities; in that case the Foundation’s rules for scripts and add-ons apply to the embedded scripts, and published scripts that use the Blender Python API must be made available under the GNU GPL.[2] A studio that distributes scene files with embedded scripts, for example in a purchasable asset pack, should therefore treat the scripts separately from the scene data.
Items that remain under the GPL
Not everything that appears in a finished work is user output. The FAQ explains that screenshots of GPL applications are considered to be licensed as the author wishes, so that documentation such as books can carry the author’s copyright, but only for the screenshot as a whole and as an illustration of how the software works; individual items in a screenshot, such as icons, are still GPL. It adds that copyright law differs between countries and recommends legal advice when unsure.[2] The splash screen and icons are GPL material, and using them requires following the GPL; use of the Blender logo is GPL only within screenshots of the interface, while the logo is otherwise a trademark with its own guidelines.[2][8]
Using Blender in a credit line is a trademark matter and not an output matter. The logo page says that showing the logo on film credits is not considered commercial use, and recommends typing “Blender” rather than using the logo when stating that a project was created with it.[9]
Documentation licence
The Blender Manual is licensed separately from the software. The manual states that, except where otherwise noted, its content is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence or any later version, and that logos, trademarks, icons, source code and Python scripts used in the manual are excluded.[3] References to manual material should attribute the “Blender Documentation Team” and include a hyperlink online or the URL in print, and contributors do not hold exclusive copyright over their text.[3] Previous versions of the manual, according to the same page, were available under an Open Content License, versions 2.26 to 2.77.[3] Because the share-alike term applies to derivative documentation, a company that adapts manual text into its own training material should comply with attribution and share-alike, which differs from the GPL terms of the software.
Website content licence
The Foundation’s documents describe the website licence in two different ways. The licence page says most of the blender.org website is available under Creative Commons Attribution, with some exceptions.[1] The website credits page states that, unless specified otherwise, the content on the website is available to share and use under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike licence, with the attribution line “Blender Foundation - www.blender.org”, and that artwork on the site may require crediting the artists too and is then clearly marked.[5] The two pages are not consistent about whether the share-alike condition applies. A user who wishes to reuse website text or images should treat the stricter statement as the safe reading and ask the Foundation, whose contact is given on the website page, where the difference matters.[5] The page also states that no third party tracks visitors and that blender.org sites carry no third-party advertisements.[5]
Blender Studio content
Blender Studio is a membership platform whose terms state that, unless notified otherwise, all digital content, including webpages, video, artwork and 3D data, is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, that all software provided on Blender Studio is under a free and open licence recognised as such by the Free Software Foundation, and that trademarks and logos including the Blender logo are copyrighted properties with all rights reserved by their owners.[6] Those terms are the basis on which films, production files and training material from the Studio may be reused: attribution is the condition, the logos are excluded, and individual items marked otherwise follow their own notice. The membership and funding terms are covered in the Development Fund, Studio and LTS article.
Privacy and internet use
The licence page states that Blender needs no registration, makes no internet connection when installed and used, and does not need the internet to function. Some bundled add-ons may access the internet for additional services, are not enabled on installation, are not required for the software to function, and ask for explicit permission when enabled; the page notes that this applies to official releases from blender.org and recommends using them.[1] For compliance reviews of data flows, that statement defines the baseline against which third-party builds and extensions can be compared.
Out of scope
This article does not cover copyright ownership questions arising from assets created with third-party add-ons or libraries, the licences of individual asset marketplaces, or the licence of artwork supplied by contributors to the Foundation’s website beyond what the Foundation states. It does not interpret how copyright law treats program output in any country.