Hello,
I’m creating a character and want to sell it (Blender Market at first). So I was wondering if the GPL licence of Rigify allows me to use it to generate my rigs, adapt them and sell the final product?
Can anybody tell me if it is possible, and what are the obligations in that case?
Thanks.
Short answer: yes, but whats the incentive for people to buy it if they can use the same, free, automated process for themselves? If you’re tweaking the rig after, which I assume you are then still yes and there’s more of an incentive to buy there.
Long answer: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/108552/can-gpl-licensed-software-be-resold
Thank you for your answer.
Indeed, I don’t want to sell the Rigify add-on, I want to sell a complete character where Rigify helped me to set the complete rig. So this won’t be a simple rig generated by the magic “Rigify Generate” button either.
Which means I use the Rigify add-on as a tool, the same way I use Blender as a tool. I won’t sell any modified add-on or software. But I’m still not sure if the GPL license of the add-on allows me create any 3D content I want with it and sell it.
GPL allows commercial use, so yes you can. You an even sell Blender, even if it´s frowned upon it´s not illegal. And for me there is no moral issue involved in your case, since as you say, you´re selling a character, not just the rig.
Yes, you can do this.
Yes, I know that some peoples are selling Blender (><'). I’ve seen it here several times.
I was also wondering about the moral to use the Rigify add-on to rig the armature instead of my brain, but I came to the conclusion that my product won’t be just a rig, but a complete character with lots of …well, that’s a surprise 
Thank you again.
Hm an animator would probaply see your figure just as a “tool” too, to make a movie.
By that same logic he wouldnt violate to use your model for free as wel ?
Curious as where the logic ends. for a theatre a movie is a tool too, and for visitors its just a tool to have a fun time.
Not sure where this ends, but i personally wouldnt mind if people could earn some bucks with modeling using blender.
I would think that its part of blender, and thus have no restriction… but i can be wrong on that.
It depends the license I think. And if you want my opinion, if I sell it, that’s not to allow the neighbor to give it for free.
The movie theater pays to have the rights to play the movie and the visitor pays to watch it.
I don’t mind either actually 
Actually, this is a good question. How is Rigify’s output licensed? As I understood it, the armature minus the code to make the handy UI would be like meshes, textures, and other things one makes with Blender - i.e. not code, not derived from code, not linking to code, and therefore not covered by the GPL. Not a lawyer though and, frankly, never had the need to ask one on this particular angle of copyright law
Would be good to get an official thumbs up/down on the matter though.
I guess the best way to have a definitive answer is to ask the developper himself. And Nathan Vegdahl seems to be the guy. Anybody know a way to contact him directly? I did a search in the forum and found that Cessen showed the Rigify add-on first. Is it the same person?
edit: Sent a PM to Cessen…
Yeah,
don’t do that
Yeah, Cessen is your man & is Nathan Vegdahl.
You guys are really overcomplicating this…
The legal world doesn’t know the word ‘overcomplicate’.
I´m just saying both Blender software and Rigify are GPL. There is nothing in GPL that prevents you from selling either, or the resulting artwork from using them. Nathan will tell you the same. Why aren´t there any discussions about if you can make commercial movies with Blender? It´s a no brainer, and so is this.
Anyhoo, those are my final 2c 
Sorry, why this legal question only related to “Rigify”, and not also with any other component included in Blender?
I was thinking the same thing. nothing in gpl stops you from selling anything and the code that generates the panels etc is part of your file.
Well yeah, that’s pretty obvious. The more interesting question is if he sells it under the GPL, and a customer buys it and uses it in a game, does that customer then need to publish the game under GPL? The common sense answer would be no, because the actual rig wouldn’t actually get into the game, it would just be used to create baked animations. But it’s really up to a court to decide. And courts don’t really care about common sense all that much, which is a pity.
No, the rig is used to create the animations, but isn´t included in the final product, so it´s quite clear cut. There really is no difference compared to making a movie. See, this is what I mean by overthinking and overcomplicating 
At the moment Rigify dont put restriction on it, its a tool, that you use for create a characters rigs. That you have ofc need to rework and pass time for make it working as intended.
One good thing could be to credit the addon and their developpers on the description of your character .