Can anybody create their own software license?
<p>For example, there's the GPL license:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html" rel="noreferrer">https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html</a></p>
<p>And I assume they made it themselves.</p>
<p>Can anybody create their own license? That is to say, can I for example create my own license under which I can license software?
If so, then I have a followup question:</p>
<p>Can you mandate how a software will be released? For example, I'd make this kind of license:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This software is licensed under the [INSERT_NAME_LICENSE] you have the right to freely use, distribute and modify the software, under the
condition that any derivative software created based on this software,
or created by this software, will necessarily also use
[INSERT_NAME_LICENSE] and cannot be sold.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Also, would the following clause even be legal?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Using this software you agree that any work and intellectual property based on or created with
this software will be under the [INSERT_NAME_LICENSE] license, even
after any and all code from this software is removed in a future
update, or even if the work is rebuilt from the ground up</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Basically saying that if you use software under the [INSERT_NAME_LICENSE] license to create anything, your creation will automatically be under the [INSERT_NAME_LICENSE] license, even if you completely remove all code created by the original software under [INSERT_NAME_LICENSE] in a future update, your derivative work and the intellectual property associated with it will have to be under the [INSERT_NAME_LICENSE] license. Even if they create the exact same work from scratch without the use of my software.
Is that even legal?</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Can anybody create their own license? That is to say, can I for example create my own license under which I can license software?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yep.  It's just a contract granting rights to use a copyrighted work.  You can write your own contracts, so you can write your own software license.  It's just often recommended that you don't, because common licenses are more well-understood, and inexperienced drafters may make errors that could result in problems, such as unintended restrictions, failing to restrict things that were intended to be restricted, or creating provisions that aren't enforceable in some/all jurisdictions.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Can you mandate how a software will be released?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes.  Many software licenses, including GPL, do.  The restrictions you describe in your example sound similar to <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" rel="noreferrer">CC BY-NC-SA</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Also, would the following clause even be legal?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Using this software you agree that any work and intellectual property based on or created with
this software will be under the [INSERT_NAME_LICENSE] license, even
after any and all code from this software is removed in a future
update, or even if the work is rebuilt from the ground up</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm not entirely certain, but &quot;even after any and all code from this software is removed in a future update, or even if the work is rebuilt from the ground up&quot; seems, in my opinion, unlikely to be enforceable—<em>especially</em> &quot;even if the work is rebuilt from the ground up.&quot;  How would you differentiate a complete rebuild from a totally new piece of software?</p>
<p>More broadly, once your copyrighted code is no longer in the product, there's nothing for them to license from you.  It's hard to imagine how you'd be able to claim that you're harmed by someone releasing a new version of a product that used to contain your code under a different license.  Without harm to you, there's nothing for a court to redress.</p>

<p>Yes, everybody can write licenses. No, not everybody should. Ask a lawyer that is a specialist in this or use an already established license.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Using this software you agree that any work and intellectual property based on or created with this software will be under the [INSERT_NAME_LICENSE] license, even after any and all code from this software is removed in a future update, or even if the work is rebuilt from the ground up</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This clause might be null and void in many cases. A clause in a contract to acquire a tool that forces all your works to be licensed like the tool not only is morally very dubious, it also might make the contract <a href="https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/what-is-an-unconscionable-contract.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">unconscionable</a>—the clause would qualify as a very unfair surprise.</p>
<p>An example: Blizzard had, in the re-release of Warcraft III, put a huge emphasis and statements out that made clear that they own any derivates, as possible, the ownership or license transfer that happens to mods to the game is by far not a surprise. Those clauses are a <em>considerable</em> amount of the contract that allows you to use the level editor.</p>
<p>In contrast, the suggested clause could hide in the EULA, thus it would be not only unenforceable, but it would also be unconscionable and might even void the contract as a whole—some countries don't allow the transfer of copyrights this way.</p>

intellectual-property software