Licensing

Making a rig here needs no Spine license

Riggy generates Spine 4.2 skeletons, atlases and images programmatically. The Spine Editor is never involved, the format is publicly documented, and what comes out is your own work: use it, sell it, give it away.

Shipping it with the official Spine runtime does

Engines load these files with the official Spine Runtimes — spine-ts, spine-unity, spine-pixi, spine-c and the rest. Integrating them into a product takes a Spine Editor license, held by whoever does the integration, at the time they do it.

You may integrate the Spine Runtimes into software or otherwise create derivative works of the Spine Runtimes (collectively, “Products”), provided that: (a) each Product adds significant and primary functionality to the Spine Runtimes; and (b) You have a valid Spine Editor license at the time the Spine Runtimes are integrated into each Product.

Spine Editor License Agreement, §2.1

The license has to be valid at that moment rather than forever: §2.2 lets you keep distributing a product you integrated while licensed. Riggy neither includes such a license nor removes the requirement.

The free trial does not grant that right

The Spine Trial license does not grant rights to integrate, distribute, or otherwise make use of the Spine Runtimes.

Spine Editor License Agreement, §1.4.1

The trial is for evaluating Spine, and it covers nothing you ship. Esoteric lists the editions and their current prices on the purchase page linked below.

Who needs one, and who does not

• The developer who integrates the runtime into a game, a tool or an SDK: yes, one license, valid at the time of integration.
• The people who play that game or open a site built with it: no. Watching an animation is not integrating a runtime.
• Anyone who plays these files back with their own renderer instead of the official runtime: no. The license covers the runtime code, not the data format.

This page runs that runtime too

The live preview in Riggy is spine-webgl 4.2, the official web runtime, and it is served to your browser as part of this site. Its license agreement is therefore reproduced here in full, as its own terms require.

Spine Runtimes License Agreement

Spine Runtimes License Agreement
Last updated April 5, 2025. Replaces all prior versions.

Copyright (c) 2013-2025, Esoteric Software LLC

Integration of the Spine Runtimes into software or otherwise creating
derivative works of the Spine Runtimes is permitted under the terms and
conditions of Section 2 of the Spine Editor License Agreement:
https://esotericsoftware.com/spine-editor-license

Otherwise, it is permitted to integrate the Spine Runtimes into software
or otherwise create derivative works of the Spine Runtimes (collectively,
"Products"), provided that each user of the Products must obtain their own
Spine Editor license and redistribution of the Products in any form must
include this license and copyright notice.

THE SPINE RUNTIMES ARE PROVIDED BY ESOTERIC SOFTWARE LLC "AS IS" AND ANY
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL ESOTERIC SOFTWARE LLC BE LIABLE FOR ANY
DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
(INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES,
BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, OR LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF
THE SPINE RUNTIMES, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.