Question about licence

Ani

Hello.
I'm not sure to understand the licence system : "You can integrate the Spine Runtimes into your software free of charge, but users of your software must have their own Spine license."
I'm the animator and have to take a licence to work with Spine. OK. I'm working with someone else who is using Unity as a coder, and he doesn't animate anything with Spine. I export the animations, and he only opens the files in Unity (using the unity-runtime I guess ?). Does he need a licence too ?

Misaki

Ani Welcome to the Spine forum!

Whether that coder also needs a license depends on whether he or she is a member of the same organization. For example, if you and the coder are part of the same company, you do not need to obtain a new license for that coder to integrate Spine Runtimes into their product. Your license is treated as a license held by the company, and the company license allows its employees to use the Spine Runtimes.

If you work independently and are not affiliated with the same organization as the coder, the coder may need to purchase a license. If the coder works for his or her own company, that company would need to purchase a Spine license, and if the coder is the developer and the person who publishes, distributes, or sells the product, the coder would need to purchase the license himself or herself.

Ani

Hello. Thanks for your answer. I'm an indie graphist, I can't ask each of my indie collaborators or customers to buy a licence, just to be able to recover my animations. I don't understand your commercial policy...

Davide

Ani

Hello, and thank you for your message. I understand your concern regarding licensing and your collaboration with your customers.

When your customer uses Spine runtimes, they are utilizing part of our technology, which requires ongoing maintenance and updates. While your work as an animator might be complete, the runtimes remain an integral part of their project, and they may require support in the future. This is why we ask customers using our runtimes to have a valid license—it ensures they receive the updates and support they might need.

Consider also that if your customer is not eligible for an enterprise license, they might only need an Essential license, which is quite affordable.

That said, if your customer does not wish to use Spine as part of their workflow, you have the option to provide them with traditional frame-by-frame animation exports. They can then animate these within Unity or another platform of their choice. In this scenario, since our runtimes would not be involved, your customer would not need to obtain a Spine license.