Read the licence: search for “territory”
3 October 2026 · 2 min read
What happened
This week I was choosing tools for the games I make. One of them, Hunyuan3D from Tencent, turns pictures into 3D models. It is free to download.
The first line of its licence says it does not apply in the European Union, the United Kingdom or South Korea. Further down, it says any use outside its allowed territory is unlicensed. I am in the UK, so it was out, however good it is.
Free to download and free to use are two different things. The download page will not tell you. The licence will.
Before and after
What most of us do
Find a free tool, download it, start building.
→ Weeks of work on something you may have no right to use, or to sell.
Two minutes first
Open the licence (usually a file called LICENSE). Press Ctrl+F and search for “territory”, then “commercial”.
→ You know before you start whether you can use it where you live, and whether you can sell what you make.
Why it works
Those two words are where the limits usually sit: where you may use the tool, and whether you may make money from it. You do not need to read the whole thing to find out whether it is a no.
If the licence is unclear, ask your AI chat to explain those sections in plain English, then check its answer against the text yourself. If you are going to sell something, ask a person who knows.
This tip started as a post on X.