Licensing
Free game assets: how to use them commercially without licence surprises
What free, royalty-free and Creative Commons licences allow, how our Standard licence covers free assets, and the attribution and redistribution rules.
By AssetLoom Team, published , 6 min read
“Free” describes the price of an asset, not what you are allowed to do with it. A free model can come with a licence that bans commercial use, demands a credit in every build, or forces you to share your own work under the same terms. Most licence surprises happen because someone read the price and skipped the licence.
This guide explains the terms you will meet, how our Standard licence treats free assets, what attribution and redistribution mean in practice, and a short checklist for using free assets in a game you plan to ship. It is a plain-language summary, not legal advice. For anything you get from AssetLoom, the licence recorded with your purchase and our Terms of Service govern.
Free, royalty-free and public domain are different things
- Free means you pay nothing. On its own it says nothing about your rights.
- Royalty-free means you don’t pay per copy, per sale or per view after you get the licence. It doesn’t mean free of charge, and it doesn’t mean free of conditions: a royalty-free asset still has a licence with rules.
- Public domain (or a CC0 dedication) means the owner has given up their rights as far as the law allows. There are no conditions, but you also get no promise about where the asset came from.
- Licensed, not sold: with almost every asset, free or paid, you get permission to use it. You don’t get the copyright.
Licences you will meet on free assets
Free assets around the web often use Creative Commons licences. The short codes tell you the conditions:
| Licence | Condition | In a commercial game |
|---|---|---|
| CC0 | None | Fine; crediting is optional |
| CC BY | Credit the author | Fine, with a credit in the form the licence asks for |
| CC BY-SA | Credit, and share adaptations under the same licence | Check carefully: your modified asset must be shared under CC BY-SA |
| CC BY-NC | Credit, non-commercial use only | Not allowed in a game you sell or monetise |
| CC BY-ND | Credit, no modified versions shared | Only if you use the asset unchanged |
Other sites use their own licences. Read them for the same four questions: can I use it commercially, must I credit anyone, can I modify it, and can I share the files?
Free assets on AssetLoom: the Standard licence
Every free asset on AssetLoom costs 0 credits and comes with the same Standard licence as everything we sell. Getting one works like any other purchase: you sign in with a verified email address, choose to get it for free, and the licence is recorded against your account with a certificate in your library. We may limit how many free assets you can get each day.
Under the Standard licence you can:
- use the asset in unlimited personal and commercial projects, including games, apps, videos, ads and client work;
- modify it: edit, recolour, re-render, convert and combine it with your own work;
- ship it inside a compiled or exported product, such as a game build, with no royalties;
- keep using it forever, as long as you keep to the terms;
- sell physical 3D prints you make from printable files.
Because every asset is made and licensed by AssetLoom, you are dealing with one licensor and one set of terms. Our full guide to the Standard licence has more worked examples.
Attribution: do you need to credit anyone?
For AssetLoom assets, no. Attribution is not required under the Standard licence, though we always appreciate a mention in your credits.
For assets from elsewhere, follow each licence exactly. CC BY and similar licences usually ask for the author’s name, the title, a link to the source and the licence name. A credits screen, a credits file shipped with the game or a store page section are the usual places. Keep a list as you go; reconstructing credits at the end of a project is how assets get missed.
Not claiming authorship is a separate rule from attribution. Even where no credit is needed, you can’t claim you made the original asset.
Redistribution: the line you can’t cross
The one thing the Standard licence never allows, for free and paid assets alike, is passing on the files themselves. You can’t resell, sublicense or share them, changed or unchanged, alone or as the main value of what you offer.
| What you do | Allowed? |
|---|---|
| Ship the asset inside your packaged game build | Yes |
| Show it in a trailer, screenshot or devlog video | Yes |
| Deliver a finished render or game to a client | Yes; if the client needs the files, they need their own licence |
| Commit the files to a public repository | No |
| Share the files in a Discord server or a project download for a tutorial | No |
| Re-upload them to another store, stock site or file-sharing service | No |
| Bundle them into an asset pack or template that others download | No |
Open-source and team projects
Keep licensed asset files out of public repositories, for example in an ignored folder. Each contributor can get their own copy of a free asset at no cost. A company’s employees and contractors can work with the company’s copy on its own projects.
A checklist before you ship
- List every third-party asset in the project with its source, licence and a link or saved copy of the licence text. For AssetLoom assets, the licence certificate in your library is your record.
- Check commercial use is allowed for each one, including anything from a game jam, a tutorial or an old prototype.
- Collect the required credits into your credits screen or file.
- Check nothing ships as loose source files that players can easily pull out and reuse; the normal packaging of a game engine build is enough.
- If you plan to train or fine-tune an AI model on any asset, check its AI-training permission separately. Commercial use doesn’t include it, and each AssetLoom listing states it on its own.
- Don’t use any asset as your logo or trademark, and don’t turn assets into NFTs.
Common problems
“It was free, so I assumed it was fine”
A non-commercial licence doesn’t become commercial because the asset was free. Replace the asset or get a commercial licence.
Nobody knows where an asset came from
Assets with no known source are a risk, because you can’t show you were allowed to use them. Replace them, and keep a licence list from now on.
A modified asset feels like your own
It isn’t, for licensing purposes. A modified AssetLoom asset is still covered by the Standard licence, so you still can’t share the files.
Share-alike terms spread
CC BY-SA requires adaptations to carry the same licence. Keep share-alike assets separate from files you need to keep private.
Your use doesn’t fit any example
Ask before you ship. For AssetLoom assets, email support@assetloom.io with what you plan to do.
Where to find our free assets
Browse everything that costs 0 credits on the free assets page, or go straight to free game assets. A few to start with:
- Rigged Mannequin Base Character: a 53-bone humanoid with FBX, GLB and .blend files, the skeleton our animation packs use.
- Free Low-Poly Dungeon Starter: five modular pieces copied from the full dungeon kit.
- Seamless PBR Texture Pack: 16 tileable materials.
- Free UI Sounds Sampler: eight interface sounds as WAV and OGG.
More kits and props are in Game Assets. For the file side of using them, see FBX vs GLB vs BVH.
Spotted a mistake or have a question? Email support@assetloom.io.