Retro Achievements Suddenly Claims Achievement Logic is “Proprietary”

New Language Silently Added to “Legal & Terms” Page

Mirrored at the sole discretion of clymax for sake of transparency on Retro Achievements, which was one of the aims of Moderator BahamutVoid in leaving his farewell letter not long after Administrator televandalist’s own resignation letter dropped. If you have any concerns with this mirror, please reach out to clymax directly.

Opinion Piece by clymax

Original Link: https://retroachievements.org/terms

February 23, 2026

The following new section was added via a Pull Request here with seemingly no announcement made on the website (emphasis added):

Achievement Data

Achievement titles, descriptions, and related metadata may be referenced or reused by third parties (eg: for tracking sites or community tools).

Achievement trigger logic (the code and conditions that define how achievements are evaluated) is proprietary to the RetroAchievements community and may not be reused, redistributed, or reproduced without explicit permission. The GPL-3 license covering the RetroAchievements web application source code does not extend to achievement data.

This claim may be questionable for many reasons.

Achievement [trigger] logic may not necessarily be protectible by copyright. But let’s set that aside from now.

To the extent that the achievement logic is protectible by copyright, the copyright vests, at least initially, in the achievement author. Not in Retro Achievements.

According to their Developer Code of Conduct here:

Achievement Ownership

When you publish your work you are giving it over to the community to be reviewed and reworked over time….

This language, however, does not necessarily mean that achievement authors transfer copyright to Retro Achievements.

Neither does it necessarily mean that Retro Achievements has any exclusive license to use the achievement logic.

It could mean that Retro Achievements has at best a non-exclusive license to use the achievement logic.

In that scenario, only the achievement authors have authority to decide whom else can “reuse[], redistribute[], or reproduce[]” the achievement logic.

Retro Achievements would have no authority, under copyright, to tell any party that he or she cannot “reuse[], redistribute[], or reproduce[]” the achievement logic.

So, Retro Achievements, what gives?

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