License Types

Which One Do You Need

Three licences cover everything sold on this site. The difference between them is not what the file is, it is what you are going to do with it. Two questions settle it almost every time.

Side by Side

Each licence page states its own terms in full, and those pages govern. This table is a map, not the territory.

Worked Examples

Most questions we get are variations on these.

Free Files

Files given away on this site carry the Commercial Licence, with its 5,000-unit limit, plus three restrictions that exist because the file was free:

• you may not resell or redistribute it, or upload it to a marketplace or file-sharing site;
• you may not offer it as a download from your own site or platform, even modified;
• you may not present it as your own creation.

Otherwise it behaves like any commercially licensed file: use it in client work, use it in products you sell, up to the same limits.

Files from GridPack Studio

Exports from the Studio carry a licence set by your membership tier at the moment you export:

• a tier without a commercial licence exports under the Personal Licence;
• a tier with a commercial licence exports under the Commercial Licence, including its 5,000-unit limit.

The licence attaches at export and does not change afterwards: a later upgrade does not widen it, and a downgrade or cancellation does not withdraw it. What a surviving licence continues to permit after a membership ends is set out in the Terms and Conditions.

Custom Work Commissioned from Us

Work we make to your brief is not covered by the three licences above. It is commissioned under its own arrangement, set out in the Licence Types section of the Terms and Conditions, with a standard option and a full-rights option.

If you are commissioning something and need particular rights in the result, say so in the brief. It is far easier to agree before the work than to renegotiate after it.

Rules Common to Every Licence

These apply whichever licence you hold.

• Ownership does not transfer. Copyright stays with Grid&Glow LLC or the original creator. You are buying permission, not the asset.
• You own what you make. The finished work is yours, subject to the limits of your licence.
• One person per licence. Each individual working on the file needs their own.
• Modification does not reset anything. An edited version is still under the licence that covered the original.
• The asset may never be sold on its own or in a form a buyer can extract it from.
• No machine learning training, and no inclusion in a training dataset.
• No NFTs or blockchain-based distribution.
• No trademarks built on the asset as the dominant element.
• Licences are not exclusive. The same file may be licensed to others, including to a competitor. Ask about a buy-out if that matters.
• Licences are not transferable and cannot be sold on or assigned.

Upgrading, and What Happens If You Got It Wrong

You can buy a wider licence for a file at any time. From that moment, the new licence governs. An upgrade is not retroactive, so it does not retrospectively authorise something already published under a narrower one.

That sounds severe written down, so here is how it actually goes: nearly every case we see is a miscount or a misread line, not somebody chancing it. Write to us and it ends with an invoice for the licence you should have had. The outcome is far worse for everyone if we find it first.

Still Not Sure

Describe the project at hello@gridandglow.com: what the file goes into, how many, and where it will be seen. We will tell you which licence covers it, and we will say so plainly rather than steering you to the expensive one.

These licences form part of our Terms and Conditions. Where a licence page and the Terms differ on a point, the Terms govern. Refunds are covered by the Refund Policy.