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2026

WTFPL

Also known as Do What the Fuck You Want to Public License.

Commercial use
allowed
Share alike
not required
Attribution
not required
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Write this as a license text (needs an account) DALICC reads the model above and writes what it permits, requires and prohibits in plain English. Without an account, the Text download above writes the model out from the vocabulary.

Canonical URI https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/WTFPL

Permissions

  • Change license by library convention Library convention: family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing. Replacing the license of the work, or of an adaptation, with another license, or changing its terms.
  • Charge distribution fee from the text Charging a fee for the act of providing a copy of the work to someone else.
  • Commercial use from the text Using the work to generate income, directly or indirectly, for example by selling it or by using it in advertising.
  • Derivative works from the text Distributing an adaptation of the work and making it available to the public.
  • Derive from the text Creating a new work from the work, such as a translation, adaptation or arrangement of it or of a part of it.
  • Display from the text Showing the work to the public without making a copy the viewer keeps.
  • Distribute from the text Providing copies of the work to the public or to anyone else.
  • Grant use from the text Granting third parties the right to use the work.
  • Modified works from the text Distributing a modified version of the work that does not amount to a new, derivative work.
  • Modify from the text Altering the work, for example by updating it, without creating a new work; an alteration that creates a new work is Derive.
  • Present from the text Performing the work in public, including by broadcast or other communication to the public.
  • Reproduce from the text Making copies of the work in any form.

Prohibitions

This license states no prohibitions.

License-wide duties

This license states no duties that apply to the work as a whole.

What applies by default

The statements above are the library's reading of this license: each is marked with the sentence it rests on, or as a library convention where the text is not explicit. The statements below are the ones the DALICC reasoner supplies for acts the license says nothing about, from the default rules of the dependency graph it reasons with. Each one names the legal source it rests on. None of it is in the record.

  • Promote by default rule (adopted) Using the name or trademarks of the licensor or of contributors to endorse or promote a product.

    This license says nothing about Promote, and the graph applies this reading in all jurisdictions it covers: it is not permitted unless the license permits it.

    A licence that says nothing about endorsement is read as not allowing it: the licence gives the licensee no right to use the licensor's name or marks in a way that states or implies that the licensor endorses the licensee or its product, while stating truthfully that a work is based on or uses the licensed work is a different act that this rule does not decide. A copyright licence grants rights in the work, and the right to use a name or a trademark is a separate right under trademark law and the protection of names, which a silent copyright licence does not pass on. Combining a licence that is silent about endorsement with one that permits it shows a conflict marked as coming from this rule.

    Basis Trademark and name rights are separate from copyright: Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 article 9 lets the proprietor of an EU trade mark prevent all third parties not having his consent from using the sign in the course of trade, and Directive (EU) 2015/2436 article 10, 15 U.S.C. 1114 and 1125(a), section 12 BGB and section 43 ABGB protect marks and names in the same way. The library's evidence is Creative Commons 4.0 section 2(b)(2): Patent and trademark rights are not licensed under this Public License. A copyright licence that is silent grants no right to use the licensor's name or marks to suggest endorsement (Worldwide)

Info

Target asset types
Creative work (i.e. text, picture, sound, movie), Dataset, Software
Region / jurisdiction
Worldwide
Validity
Perpetual
Source
http://www.wtfpl.net/
Legal code
http://www.wtfpl.net/about/
This description is published under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Attribution name
Sam Hocevar
SPDX identifier
WTFPL on the SPDX license list
DALICC identifier
WTFPL

This record is published under CC BY 4.0. Credit it as: DALICC License Library, DALICC - Verein zur Förderung der Rechtssicherheit in der Datenbewirtschaftung, https://dalicc.net, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The license it describes belongs to its publisher.

Use this license

Everything below is generated from this record. Replace the example address with the address of your own work.

JSON sidecar 

{
  "license-uri": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/WTFPL",
  "license-title": "WTFPL",
  "spdx-id": "WTFPL",
  "asset": null,
  "generated-by": "DALICC"
}

RDF, Turtle 

@prefix cc: <http://creativecommons.org/ns#> .

<https://example.org/my-work>
    cc:license <https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/WTFPL> .

RDF, JSON-LD 

{
  "@context": {
    "cc": "http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
  },
  "@id": "https://example.org/my-work",
  "cc:license": {
    "@id": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/WTFPL"
  }
}

This license carries no attribution duty, so no credit line is offered here.

Badge DALICC badge for WTFPL

Markdown 

[![License: WTFPL](https://dalicc.net/license-library/WTFPL/badge.svg)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/WTFPL)

HTML 

<a href="https://dalicc.net/license-library/WTFPL"><img src="https://dalicc.net/license-library/WTFPL/badge.svg" alt="License: WTFPL"></a>

Review

Status
Reviewed against the license text
Last checked
2026-09-15
Reviewer
Giray Havur
Verdict
corrected during the review
Record changed since this review
yes (version 2, 2026-09-24)
Findings
6 recorded, 3 applied to the record, 1 proposed

The record models a license whose only operative term is "You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO." Eleven permissions, no prohibitions and no duties is exactly right; it is the only record in the library with that shape and the family conventions checked before the review both list it as an intentional exception. The SPDX id was missing.

6 findings

  • minor Rubric 1 spdx:licenseId applied

    Added the SPDX list id WTFPL.

  • minor Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

    Added odrl:grantUse. Term 0 grants everything without reservation, and passing the rights on to a third party is part of "what the fuck you want to".

  • info Rubric 5 odrl:duty none

    No duty is correct. The one condition in the text, "changing it is allowed as long as the name is changed", applies to the license document itself, not to works licensed under it, so it is not a duty of the licensee of a work.

  • minor Rubric 1 cc:legalcode proposed

    cc:legalcode points at http://www.wtfpl.net/about/, an explanatory page. The text itself is at http://www.wtfpl.net/txt/COPYING. Left alone because the about page does reproduce the license.

  • info Rubric 2 odrl:target none

    The asset collection lists software, dataset and creative work. The license is media neutral, so all three are right.

  • minor Rubric 10 record applied

    Standard-license addition of 2026-09-15, decision 9 and 10: the record was corrected against its new siblings and versioned. Library convention 14: dct:publisher was the placeholder 'N.N.'; the text names Sam Hocevar as the author of the licence, not a steward of it, so the predicate is left out.

Report an issue The review record as JSON The review checks the model against the license text. It is not legal advice.

History

This license model has 2 versions. Version 2 is the one served today; every earlier version keeps its own address, so a conclusion drawn from one of them can still be checked against it.

  1. Version 2 current2026-09-24 Giray Havur

    The content review of 2026-09-15 added 1 identification detail and 1 permission and recorded the review state. Later changes brought it in line with its family and its text in the verification of 2026-09-15, recorded which sentence of the text each statement rests on and named the license the record itself is published under.

    View JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML

    7 changes

    • added dalicc:reviewStatus dalicc:Reviewed

      Review state Every record records how far it has come in the editorial workflow and when it was last checked against the legal text.

    • added dalicc:reviewedOn "2026-09-15"^^xsd:date

      Review state Every record records how far it has come in the editorial workflow and when it was last checked against the legal text.

    • added permission odrl:grantUse

      Review finding Added odrl:grantUse. Term 0 grants everything without reservation, and passing the rights on to a third party is part of "what the fuck you want to".

    • added spdx:licenseId "WTFPL"

      Review finding Added the SPDX list id WTFPL.

    • removed dct:publisher "N.N."

      Manual edit Library convention 14: dct:publisher was the placeholder 'N.N.'; the text names Sam Hocevar as the author of the licence, not a steward of it, so the predicate is left out.

    • changed permission dalicc:ChangeLicense

      was permission dalicc:ChangeLicense

      Manual edit The statement is marked as a library convention, family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing: the text does not state it in as many words.

    • added dct:license <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>

      Manual edit Every record is published under CC BY 4.0. cc:license names the record DALICC keeps of that licence; dct:license now names it by the address Creative Commons publishes it at, so that a consumer matching the canonical IRI finds it.

  2. Version 1

    The version this model had before the content review of 2026-09-15.

    View JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML

Every change names the reason behind it: a finding of the content review, one of its library-wide decisions, the metadata that review wrote onto every record, or a hand edit. None of it is legal advice.

Nothing on this page is legal advice. What a license means is decided by its text; ask a legal advisor before you rely on it.