Terms of Use

Last updated: May 21, 2026

By installing or using RuForge, you agree to what is on this page. If

you do not agree, do not install it.

What RuForge is

RuForge is a free, open-source Windows desktop application maintained

by Atticus (referred to below as "the maintainer"). It wraps yt-dlp,

ffmpeg, and a media player. It downloads media from YouTube and other

sites that yt-dlp supports, indexes downloaded files in a local

library, and plays them back.

RuForge is provided as-is under the Apache-2.0 license. There is no

warranty. There is no service-level guarantee. There is no paid tier or

support contract. Two people use it every day. That is the scale.

Your responsibility

You are responsible for what you download and what you do with it.

That includes:

Complying with the Terms of Service of any site you download from. YouTube, Vimeo, and similar platforms have their own rules about downloading. RuForge does not enforce or interpret those rules for you.
Complying with copyright law in your jurisdiction. Downloading copyrighted material without permission may be illegal where you live, regardless of the tool you use.
Not redistributing downloaded content. Personal use is one thing. Reuploading, selling, or sharing copyrighted material is another.

RuForge is intended for legitimate use cases including:

Watching videos you already have rights to (your own uploads, content you bought, Creative Commons material, content the creator released for download).
Archiving creator-released material under the creator's stated license.
Offline access for travel, low-bandwidth situations, or accessibility.
Educational research, criticism, commentary, and fair use as defined in your jurisdiction.

RuForge is not intended for piracy, mass redistribution, or commercial

exploitation of copyrighted material.

License

RuForge's source code is licensed under Apache-2.0. The full license

text is in the LICENSE file at the root of the repository.

yt-dlp and ffmpeg are separate projects with their own licenses. They

are bundled or referenced by RuForge but governed by their own terms.

See LEGAL.md for the third-party component list.

Updates

RuForge ships an auto-updater that checks for new versions on launch.

By running RuForge you allow it to fetch the version metadata file

from the project's GitHub repository. You can review the updater

behavior in Settings. New versions are signed; the public key is

embedded in the application.

No warranty

RuForge is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied,

including but not limited to merchantability, fitness for a particular

purpose, and non-infringement. The maintainer is not liable for any

damages arising from use of the software, including data loss,

Termination

You can stop using RuForge at any time by uninstalling it. There is no

account to close.

The maintainer reserves the right to stop developing or distributing

RuForge at any time, for any reason.

Changes

These terms can change. Significant changes will be announced in the

release notes for the version that contains them.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia,

United States, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. Disputes

that cannot be resolved informally should be filed in state or federal

courts located in Virginia.

Contact

Open an issue at https://github.com/UnboundAngel/RuForge/issues.