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Sublicensable

Definition: Whether a license grant can be passed on (sublicensed) to a third party — closely related to Sublicense, but here it shows up specifically inside compound phrases like “non-exclusive, royalty free, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license.” Risk level: The positive-grant direction is the majority pattern here: 11 platforms (Reddit, BeReal, LinkedIn’s Terms of Service, Moltbook, Pinterest, Quora, Snapchat, Spotify, TruthSocial, Tumblr, WhatsApp) use “sublicensable”/“sub-licensable” as a right the platform claims for itself over your content — the riskier direction, since it lets the platform hand your content to another company. The other 8 (Twitter, X, Facebook, Instagram, LINE, LinkedIn’s “Other” page, Twitch, WeChat) use “non-sublicensable” to restrict the license they grant to developers (or, for Twitch/WeChat, to ordinary users of the platform’s own software) — low risk on its own, but it still matters as one term in a cluster (with transferable, royalty-free) that determines how broad a license grant really is.

Platforms Using This Clause

Common Wording

Twitter hereby grants you and you accept a non-exclusive, royalty free, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license solely to: 1. Use the Twitter API to integrate Twitter Content into your Services or conduct analysis of such Twitter Content, as explicitly approved by Twitter… — Twitter, Other (Developer Agreement, License from Twitter), 2022-07-11 — restricts the license X/Twitter grants to developers; the direct historical predecessor of X’s near-identical clause.

X gives developers a narrow, revocable, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to use X Content via the API, and developers must reciprocally grant X a license to “access, index, and cache by any means, including web spiders and/or crawlers” any page where they embed X content. — X, Other (Developer Agreement), 2024-02-21 — same narrow, non-sublicensable grant Twitter held since at least 2022.

we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable (except to Service Providers as described below), non-transferable, non-assignable license to use, access, and integrate with Platform, but only to the extent permitted in these Terms and all other applicable terms and policies. You will not sell, transfer, or sublicense Platform to anyone. — Facebook, Other (Platform Terms, “Our License to You”), 2022-07-11 — Meta’s equivalent restriction on developers integrating with its Platform; structurally identical in purpose to Twitter/X’s developer-facing grant, though Meta carves out a narrow exception for the developer’s own Service Providers.

you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable, and sublicensable license to use, copy, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, distribute, store, perform, and display Your Content… — Reddit, Terms of Service, 2022-07-11 (present in substance throughout) — breaks the pattern entirely: Reddit grants itself a sublicensable right over user Content, the opposite direction from every other confirmed occurrence of this keyword.

you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable license to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute the content you share with a Globally Shared Content in any and all media or distribution methods. — BeReal, Terms of Service, 2025-08-07 (present unchanged through 2025-10-03) — same platform-claims-it-for-itself direction as Reddit’s, here scoped only to “Globally Shared Content” rather than all user content.

LINE grants Users a non-transferable, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive license to use the Subject Contents provided by LINE, solely for the purpose of using the Services. — LINE, Terms of Service, 2022-07-11 (wording updated 2023-10-02 and again 2024-02-16) — back to the conventional restriction direction: a narrow, non-sublicensable license LINE grants to the user over LINE-provided content (e.g. stickers/themes), the mirror image of the broad clause LINE takes for itself over user-submitted content (see Royalty-Free).

we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable (except to independent contractors so they may host, develop, test, operate, modify or support your Application in accordance with Section 3.1), non-transferable, non-assignable license under LinkedIn’s intellectual property rights during the Duration… — LinkedIn, Other (Developer Agreement, API License), 2022-07-11 (wording lightly updated 2023-06-16; present in substance throughout) — the conventional restriction direction: a narrow API license LinkedIn grants to developers, with a Facebook-style carve-out for the developer’s own independent contractors.

LinkedIn hereby grants Customer a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to use, distribute, and display the Insights Reports for Customer’s non-commercial activity. — LinkedIn, Terms of Service, 2022-07-11 (confirmed present through 2023-08-08; absent from the document by 2023-10-15, confirmed via raw cross-check — see that platform page’s Overview) — also the restriction direction, but B2B: a narrow license LinkedIn grants to its business Customers over a specific deliverable (generated Insights Reports), not user Content.

A worldwide, transferable and sublicensable right to use, copy, modify, distribute, publish and process, information and content that you provide through our Services and the services of others, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or others. — LinkedIn, Terms of Service, 2023-10-15 (present in substance through 2025-11-04, replacing the B2B Insights Reports clause above) — the platform-claims-it-for-itself direction: LinkedIn’s consumer-facing Content license, applying to every Member rather than just B2B Customers, though user-terminable by deleting content or closing the account and notably omitting “royalty-free”/“perpetual”/“irrevocable” qualifiers seen on other platforms’ equivalent clauses.

You hereby grant to us a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sublicensable, transferable, royalty free, fully paid up license to use Your Content for any purpose… — Moltbook, Terms of Service, 2026-03-18 — the platform-claims-it-for-itself direction, matching Reddit’s/BeReal’s pattern but going further: the identical license is separately repeated for “Your Data,” and the same sentence includes an explicit moral-rights waiver — see Irrevocable.

You grant Pinterest and our users a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, store, display, reproduce, save, modify, create derivative works, perform, and distribute your User Content on Pinterest solely for the purposes of operating, developing, providing, and using Pinterest. — Pinterest, Terms of Service, 2022-07-11 (present in substance throughout) — the platform-claims-it-for-itself direction, but extended directly to “our users” as well — the earliest confirmed user-to-user grant under this keyword in this wiki’s dataset.

you grant Quora and its affiliated companies a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty free, fully paid up, transferable, sublicensable (through multiple tiers), license to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, create derivative works from, publish, transmit, store, display and distribute, translate, communicate and make available to the public, and otherwise use Your Content… — Quora, Terms of Service, 2022-07-11 (present in substance throughout) — the platform-claims-it-for-itself direction, with the unusual added qualifier “through multiple tiers,” explicitly allowing the sublicense chain to extend beyond a single hop; also extended to other users in a separate sentence (see Royalty-Free).

Accordingly, you hereby grant to Spotify a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable [→ sublicensable from 2023-03-24], royalty-free, fully paid, irrevocable, worldwide license to reproduce, make available, perform and display, translate, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, and otherwise use any such User Content… — Spotify, Terms of Service, 2022-07-11 (the right itself is present in substance from baseline; the dataset only tags it sublicensable from 2023-03-24 onward, when the hyphenated “sub-licensable” was respelled “sublicensable” — a tagging-coverage artifact, not a new right) — the platform-claims-it-for-itself direction.

For all content you submit to the Services, you grant Snap and our affiliates a worldwide, royalty-free, sub-licencable, and transferable licence to host, store, cache, use, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit, publish, analyse, transmit, and distribute that content. — Snapchat, Terms of Service, 2022-07-11 (present in substance throughout 34 scrapes) — the platform-claims-it-for-itself direction; the same sublicensable right is also extended to “other users of the Services” for Public Content specifically (see Royalty-Free).

By posting Interactive Content, you hereby grant to us a perpetual, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, fully-paid, assignable, and sublicensable right and license to reproduce, modify, translate, transmit by any means, display, perform, and/or distribute all content relating to Interactive Content. — TruthSocial, Terms of Service, 2024-03-14 (present in substance throughout 14 scrapes) — the platform-claims-it-for-itself direction, over a separate “Interactive Content” category distinct from the broader Contribution License (see Royalty-Free) — a second, independently-worded maximal grant alongside the main Contribution License, similar in structure to Moltbook’s repeated Content/Data grants but covering a different content category rather than the same one twice.

…you grant Tumblr a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable right and license to use, host, store, cache, reproduce, publish, display…, perform…, distribute, transmit, modify, adapt…, and create derivative works of, such User Content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purposes of allowing Tumblr to operate the Services… The reference in this license to “creat[ing] derivative works” is not intended to give Tumblr a right to make substantive editorial changes… but does, for example, enable reblogging… — Tumblr, Terms of Service, 2022-07-11 (present in substance throughout 14 scrapes) — the platform-claims-it-for-itself direction, explicitly self-limited to enabling reblogging — see Royalty-Free for the broader framing discussion.

Unless otherwise expressly stated in writing by Twitch, by agreeing to these Terms of Service you are granted a limited, non-sublicensable license (i.e., a personal and limited right) to access and use the Twitch Services for your personal use or internal business use only. — Twitch, Terms of Service, 2022-07-11 (present in substance throughout 20 scrapes) — the restriction direction: keeps a user’s license to use the Twitch site/software itself non-sublicensable, the conventional asymmetric counterpart to the sublicensable right Twitch separately claims over User Content (see Royalty-Free).

We grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, non-transferrable, royalty-free and revocable right to use WeChat and any software from us as part of or in relation to your use of WeChat… — WeChat, Terms of Service, 2022-07-11 (present in substance throughout 8 scrapes) — the restriction direction. Notably, WeChat’s own Content-license clause (see Royalty-Free) literally grants WeChat itself a “sub-licensable” right over User Content, but the source data only tags that snippet royalty-free/transferable — a tagging-coverage gap, not evidence the right is absent.

…you grant WhatsApp a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works of, display, and perform the information… that you upload, submit, store, send, or receive on or through our Services. — WhatsApp, Terms of Service, 2022-07-11 (present in substance throughout 7 scrapes) — the positive grant direction, where WhatsApp itself claims the sublicensable right over user Content — a second confirmed exception to the “non-sublicensable” pattern, alongside Reddit’s Terms of Service.

Notes & Trends

All three confirmed platforms use “non-sublicensable” the same way: as part of a narrow, restrictive license a platform grants to third-party developers over its own API/content, not a right it takes from users. Facebook’s version is slightly less absolute than Twitter/X’s — it permits sublicensing to a developer’s own “Service Providers” — but the core restriction (developers cannot sublicense Platform access onward to unrelated third parties) is the same. This mirrors Sublicense, where the same platforms instead grant themselves a sublicensable right over user Content — broad rights for the platform, narrow rights for developers, the consistent pattern across all three. Instagram’s “Other” page carries the identical clause, confirming Meta applies one unified Platform Terms document across both Facebook and Instagram. Reddit’s Terms of Service is the first confirmed occurrence here of “sublicensable” used as a platform-claims-it-for-itself right rather than a developer-facing restriction, consistent with Reddit’s pattern of stacking maximal qualifiers into its Content license (see Royalty-Free). BeReal’s Terms of Service follows the same positive-grant direction, confirming this isn’t just a Reddit-specific anomaly — and as more platforms were added, the positive-grant direction turned out to be the majority pattern overall (11 of 19 tracked occurrences), not a rare exception to a “non-sublicensable” norm. LINE’s Terms of Service shows both directions within one platform, the same asymmetric pattern as Facebook’s Platform Terms — but here the two clauses are independent (Submitted Contents vs. Subject Contents) rather than two sides of a single negotiated agreement. LinkedIn’s “Other” page is structurally closest to Facebook’s: a Developer Agreement using “non-sublicensable” to restrict its API license to developers, with the same independent-contractor carve-out. LinkedIn’s Terms of Service shows both directions across its own history: a B2B restriction-direction license over Insights Reports (2022-07-11 to 2023-08-08), confirmed via raw cross-check to have genuinely disappeared from the document, replaced from 2023-10-15 onward by the conventional consumer-facing platform-claims-it-for-itself Content license — the only platform here where the keyword’s direction changes over time within a single document, rather than appearing in both directions at once. Moltbook’s Terms of Service is the most extreme positive-grant occurrence yet: it matches Reddit’s breadth and adds a second, separately-granted identical license over Data, plus an explicit moral-rights waiver in the same sentence as the Content grant. Pinterest’s Terms of Service is the earliest confirmed instance of the user-to-user variant of this positive grant, predating TikTok’s more widely-noted 2025-06-25 rewrite by over two years. Quora’s Terms of Service matches this same baseline date and adds a unique qualifier not seen elsewhere — “through multiple tiers” — making explicit that its sublicense chain isn’t limited to a single onward grant. Snapchat’s Terms of Service is a fourth confirmed positive-grant occurrence at the same 2022-07-11 baseline, with the platform-claims-it-for-itself right extended to other users specifically for Public Content (Stories, Spotlight, Snap Map, Lens Studio). Spotify’s Terms of Service adds a fifth positive-grant occurrence, with a tagging-coverage wrinkle worth flagging: the right itself (“sub-licensable”) is present from the 2022-07-11 baseline, but the dataset only tags it sublicensable from 2023-03-24 onward, once the spelling dropped the hyphen — a reminder that a keyword’s “first tagged date” here can lag the clause’s actual first appearance due to spelling drift, not a genuine later addition. TruthSocial’s Terms of Service adds a sixth positive-grant occurrence, over a separate “Interactive Content” category — a second, independently-worded maximal grant in the same document, alongside the broader Contribution License. Tumblr’s Terms of Service adds a seventh positive-grant occurrence, distinctive for its self-limiting framing: the same legal qualifiers as every other platform, but explicitly scoped to enabling reblogging rather than left open-ended. Twitch’s Terms of Service returns to the restriction direction: a “non-sublicensable” license to use Twitch’s own site/software, the conventional asymmetric counterpart to Twitch’s separate sublicensable Content grant — see Royalty-Free. WeChat’s Terms of Service adds another tagging-coverage gap like Spotify’s: its own Content-license clause literally contains “sub-licensable,” but the dataset only tags that snippet under royalty-free/transferable — the confirmed tagged occurrence here is the EULA restriction direction instead. WhatsApp’s Terms of Service adds another confirmed positive-grant occurrence: WhatsApp claims the sublicensable right for itself over user Content, explicitly tagged as such in the source data — unlike WeChat’s tagging gap, the dataset correctly captures the positive-grant direction here.