Live2D's SDK license sets a 20 million yen line for VTuber tools

The setup

Live2D Inc. publishes the Cubism SDK separately from the Cubism Editor: the Editor builds a rigged model, and the SDK renders that model's animation inside a third-party application such as VTube Studio or Warudo. Live2D's own SDK product page states the licensing structure up front: Live2D 'allow[s] our users to download our SDK with no initial cost and start development right away,' and only 'when the users are ready to publish their content, they will need to enter into the Publication License Agreement and pay the applicable license fee.'

What the documents show

The dedicated SDK Release License page, formally the Publication License Agreement, adds detail. The SDK is free for verification and development, and a paid license is required only 'upon releasing your content,' at least a month before release. Individuals and small-scale enterprises are exempt entirely, with one exception: 'Expandable Applications.' The page gives a concrete, VTuber-specific example: tracking software built on the Cubism SDK is required by Live2D to embed a statement that a business using such an application must sign a Publication License Agreement and pay a fee once 'annual sales made directly or indirectly by this application or content produced by this application exceed 20 million JPY,' and must notify Live2D once that threshold is crossed.

The craft

For a creator, this means the SDK's own terms rarely surface directly; a VTuber encounters them secondhand, embedded in whatever tracking tool they run, because that tool's developer is bound by the Expandable Applications category. A small streamer using free or low-cost tracking software is unlikely to cross a 20 million JPY line tied to that one application, but a growing operation, or a studio bundling tracking software into a paid product, is the intended target, and the obligation to notify Live2D sits with whoever operates the business using it.

Keeping the creator in control

Most individual VTubers never negotiate directly with Live2D over SDK terms, since the exemption for individuals and small-scale enterprises covers ordinary streaming use. What a creator retains control over, and should check, is which license actually governs the tracking application in their stack, since the page states the tracking software's own license is what applies to 'the actual content.' This is editorial: reading a tool's bundled Live2D notice, rather than assuming free-to-download means free-to-scale, is the only way to know where the threshold sits for a given setup.

• Does the tracking or streaming software in this setup disclose which Cubism SDK license category it falls under?
• If annual revenue tied to VTubing activity is approaching 20 million JPY, has the tracking software's developer been asked about its Expandable Application status?
• Is there a difference between the Cubism Editor's own license, used to build the model, and the SDK license, used to run it, here?

Live2D's SDK terms are free until a business releases content built on them, and the one number the documentation states, a 20 million JPY annual sales threshold for VTuber-facing tracking tools, is the clearest signal of when a creator's growth turns a free tool into someone else's licensing obligation.