Licence agreement

Meridian Sites (standalone platform)

Proprietary. Buying a licence grants you a non-exclusive, perpetual right to install and run one copy on one live website, plus staging and local development copies of that same site.

You may modify it freely for your own use. You may not resell, sublicense or redistribute it, in original or modified form.

Building a site for a client is fine — buy a licence per client site.

Meridian for WordPress

Licensed GPL-2.0-or-later, because WordPress themes must be. That grants you the freedoms the GPL grants, including redistribution.

What your purchase buys is the licence key, twelve months of updates, and support. Those are ours to provide or withhold and are not covered by the GPL.

What is included either way

Perpetual use of the version you receive, with no expiry and no check-in
Twelve months of updates and support from the date of purchase
One live site per licence, plus as many staging, local and development copies of that same site as you need

That last line used to read "unlimited use of the design on your own and client sites", directly under a section saying one live website and a licence per client site. Two opposite answers to the most important question a licence has to settle. One live site per licence is the rule, and it is the one the software has always enforced.

What is not permitted

Reselling or redistributing the standalone platform
Sharing your licence key or download links
Passing the files off as your own product

Demo content

The demo photographs are procedurally generated placeholders, not licensed stock. They are provided as-is for layout preview. Replace them before launch.

If we stop trading

A perpetual licence that depends on our server still answering is not perpetual. So:

The software keeps working if we disappear. There is no licence check at runtime, no phone-home, and nothing that expires. An installed site keeps running whether or not we exist.
The key server is only for downloads and updates. Losing it costs you new versions, not the site you are running.
If we wind up the business we will publish a final release with the licence check removed, and give at least 90 days' notice here and by email before any download service is switched off.

Your rights, and then the warranty

Nothing in this agreement excludes, restricts or modifies the consumer guarantees in the Australian Consumer Law. Those guarantees apply whatever is written below, and they cannot be contracted out of.

Subject to that: the software is provided as-is. We will fix defects and answer questions during your support period, but we do not warrant that it is error-free or that it suits a purpose we have not described.