Licences

Your effects are yours

You may use, share and sell the effects and plugins you make with BenJack Forge. You choose their licence when you share them. Here's what goes into them.

What's inside an exported effect

Your effect's code, written for you by the AI from your description. It's yours.
BenJack Forge's building-block library (forge.lib) and VST3 plugin wrapper. Both are under the 0BSD licence: use them for anything, with no notice or attribution required.
FAUST standard libraries. BenJack Forge only allows parts that may be used in closed-source products: code under the LGPL with the FAUST exception, or MIT-style licences such as STK-4.3. Anything under the GPL or AGPL is blocked when an effect is generated, and again at export, unless you choose otherwise. If your effect uses STK-4.3 code, that licence asks you to keep its copyright notice in your product's documentation.
Steinberg's VST3 SDK and the compiler's runtime libraries (VST3 plugins only), under the MIT, ZPL-2.1 and Apache-2.0 licences. Their notices are included in each plugin's NOTICES.txt.

Exports include a “Made with BenJack Forge” credit by default. It's optional: turn it off in the Export dialog.

The licence checks are a technical safeguard, not legal advice. If you plan to sell plugins, read NOTICES.txt in each one.

The 0BSD licence

For BenJack Forge's building-block library and VST3 plugin wrapper:

Copyright (C) 2026 BenJack Audio

Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any
purpose with or without fee is hereby granted.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

The BenJack Forge app

The app bundles Python, FAUST, the zig compiler, Steinberg's VST3 SDK and other open-source components. Their licences are listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt in the BenJack Forge installation folder.

Trademarks

VST is a registered trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. BenJack Forge is not affiliated with or endorsed by Steinberg.