Tier 2 · Legal and licensing
Legality & liability: IP, AI use, names, store rules
Pre-ship checklist for asset provenance, AI content rights, look-alikes, name clearance and store AI disclosure. Not legal advice.
Pre-ship checklist for asset provenance, AI content rights, look-alikes, name clearance and store AI disclosure. Not legal advice.
The legal branch of the Project setup gate: you reach this page when you choose to take the optional legal and licensing guidance during project setup.
Not legal advice. This file is an engineering checklist written by an agent from public sources reviewed for this checklist. It is not a lawyer's opinion, it does not cover every country, and the law here is moving month to month. Anything that ships for money, uses a name you plan to keep, or touches a known franchise goes to a qualified lawyer before launch. When a rule below and a lawyer disagree, the lawyer wins. Re-read every cited page before relying on it; terms and case status change.
What applies to your release
What applies depends on your release type, recorded during setup as legal_guidance.release_type in setup-answers.yaml. Read only your row; everything else on this page can wait.
| Release | Read these |
|---|---|
| Shared basics (every release, and "not sure yet") | The pre-ship checklist and provenance guidance below |
| A mod of an existing game | Read the original game’s EULA and modding policy; verify rights for every distributed file. |
| A free game | Record asset and music permissions, attribution, and data collection; free distribution still needs rights. |
| A paid or store-packaged product | Complete the checklist, current store content disclosures, age ratings and privacy requirements. |
Pre-ship checklist
- Record the source, licence, plan, version or generation date, destination file and reviewer for every imported or generated asset.
- Verify that the applicable terms permit the intended distribution and commercial use. Store evidence with the provenance record.
- Review characters, creatures, logos, UI and levels for resemblance to protected third-party work; seek qualified advice where rights are uncertain.
- Check names and marks before branding, using trademark databases and target stores. A search is evidence of a check, not a clearance opinion.
- Complete current store content disclosures, age ratings and privacy requirements for the actual product.
- Include every required credit and attribution with the release.
- Keep assets with unresolved permissions out of the release until the rights are established.
Provenance and publisher review
Keep the evidence with the asset when it enters the project: source URL or generation tool, applicable terms and plan, date, inputs, output file, human edits and the person who accepted it. Do not reconstruct permissions from memory at release time. A generation service or coding assistant does not establish that a publisher has the necessary rights.
Use the Audio guide for clip credits and the UI design guide for icon-source records. The same provenance requirement applies across asset types.
Generation rights and copyright
Record the tool, plan, generation date, applicable terms and human edits for every generated asset. A later subscription is not evidence that an earlier output has the required rights. Verify commercial permissions and attribution before import; ownership and permission to use are separate questions.
The US Copyright Office's Part 2 report explains the human-authorship requirement. Prompts alone do not establish authorship; human contributions can be protected. Record those contributions and disclose AI-generated material when registering a work. Copyright Office report and registration guidance.
Store disclosure and privacy
Complete the target store's current AI and content disclosures. Steam's content survey covers AI content and live-generation safeguards; Google Play's AI content policy requires safeguards and in-app reporting for covered generative apps. Check scope against the product rather than treating every use of an assistant as the same activity. Steam content survey, Google Play policy.
Review personal-data collection, privacy disclosures and consent against the target store and applicable jurisdiction before release. Apple publishes its privacy and third-party sharing rules in the App Review Guidelines.
Names, likenesses and third-party assets
Check title and logo availability before investing in branding. Record the source, licence holder, permitted uses and attribution for each third-party asset, including music. A downloadable preview or a file in another project is not proof of a licence. Obtain permission for marks or likenesses where required and seek qualified advice for uncertain rights. Keep evidence with the asset's provenance record.