Legal concerns¶

May I use the VideoLAN logo?¶

You may freely use the VideoLAN logo using this copyright - Copyright (c) 1996-2018 VideoLAN. This logo or a modified version may be used or modified by anyone to refer to the VideoLAN project or any product developed by the VideoLAN team, but does not indicate endorsement by the project.

Are there any restrictions about the usage of VideoLAN software?¶

No, you can use the software in the way you want, for personal, educational, professional, or research use.

May I redistribute a piece of VideoLAN software?¶

Yes, you may distribute an original or a modified version of a piece of VideoLAN software as long as you comply with its license terms. It is the GNU General Public License Version 2 (referred herein as GPL), and it is in the file named COPYING in our products.

Note

You do not need to ask the VideoLAN team for permission to do so!

May I redistribute libVLC in my application?¶

Yes, you may distribute an original or a modified version of libVLC as long as you comply with its license terms. It is the GNU Lesser General Public License Version 2 (referred herein as LGPL), and it is in the file named COPYING.LIB in the VLC source distribution.

Note

Beware that some modules are licensed under the GPLv2, in which case you must license your result under the GPLv2 as well. Check the modules in question before redistribution!

How do I do comply with those terms?¶

The easiest way to conform to the GPL is to accompany the product you want to distribute with its sources. For example, if you plan to distribute the latest binary version of VLC on a DVD-ROM, you should also include the VLC sources on the same medium. If you plan to distribute the latest binary version of VLC on a website, you should provide a link to the VLC sources. There are other ways to comply with the GPL, but this should be the simplest because it does not rely on a contract.

What about personal/commercial usage?¶

Some of the codecs distributed with VLC are patented and require you to pay royalties to their licensors. These are mostly MPEG style codecs. With many products, the producer pays the licensing body (in this case MPEG LA), so the user (commercial or personal) does not have to take care of this. VLC (and ffmpeg and libmpeg2 – which it uses in most of these cases) cannot do this because they are Free and Open Source implementations of these codecs. The software is not sold, and therefore the end-user becomes responsible for complying with the licensing and royalty requirements. You will need to contact the licensor on how to comply with these licenses. This goes for playing a DVD with VLC for your personal enjoyment ($2.50 one time payment to MPEG LA) as well as for using VLC for streaming a live event in MPEG-4 over the Internet.

Is libdvdcss legal?¶

The use and distribution of the libdvdcss library is controversial in a few countries, such as the United States, because of the DMCA law (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). If you are unsure about the legality of using and distributing this library in your country, please consult your lawyer.

Warning

VLC media player binaries are distributed with the libdvdcss library included.