social · Reddit
You’re creating on Reddit, which means…
You keep the copyright to everything you post. Reddit keeps a licence that never expires, that it can hand to another company without asking you, and that says in writing it covers AI training.
What they own
Not your posts. The terms say “You retain any ownership rights you have in Your Content” — note the hedge in “any ownership rights you have”. Reddit owns the site itself: the design, the code, the interface, the brand.
What you own
The copyright to your own words, photos, and videos. You can repost them anywhere, sell them, or license them to someone else. Reddit can’t stop you. You’re also the one on the hook if you post something you didn’t have the right to post.
What you don’t
Any way to take the licence back. It is “perpetual” and “irrevocable” in the same sentence, and Section 5 is on the list of sections that survive deleting your account. You also give up the right to be credited — you “irrevocably waive any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution”, and they can strip the metadata off your file.
What they can do with it
Copy it, change it, cut it into something new, store it, publish it, and display it — free, worldwide, without asking. They can hand it to companies that partner with Reddit, and the terms name one use outright: training AI and machine learning models. Your name, username, voice, and likeness are covered by the same grant. The licence is “transferable,” and Section 18 adds that Reddit “may freely assign any of our rights and obligations under these Terms” — so the company holding it may not stay Reddit.
The clauses
The grant
Reddit User Agreement — Section 5, Your Content (effective July 1, 2026) ↗
You retain any ownership rights you have in Your Content, but you grant Reddit the following license to use that Content:
When Your Content is created with or submitted to the Services, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable, and sublicensable license to use, copy, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, distribute, store, perform, and display Your Content and any name, username, voice, or likeness provided in connection with Your Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed anywhere in the world.
Perpetual and irrevocable
Both words, in one sentence. There is no end date and no mechanism to withdraw it. Deleting the post ends your copy, not their licence.
Transferable and sublicensable
Reddit can pass the right down to a partner, or hand the licence itself to another company. Section 18 is where that second half is spelled out: Reddit “may freely assign any of our rights and obligations under these Terms.”
Your voice is in the list
The grant covers “name, username, voice, or likeness”, not just the post. Voice is an unusual word to find here and it is doing real work in an era of synthetic audio.
“any ownership rights you have”
The reassuring half of the sentence is conditional. It confirms Reddit takes nothing you own; it does not confirm you own anything.
Where your posts can go, and what they can be used to build
Reddit User Agreement — Section 5, Your Content (effective July 1, 2026) ↗
This license includes the right for us to make Your Content available for syndication, broadcast, distribution, or publication by other companies, organizations, or individuals who partner with Reddit. For example, this license includes the right to use Your Content to train AI and machine learning models, as further described in our Public Content Policy. You also agree that we may remove metadata associated with Your Content, and you irrevocably waive any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content.
AI training, stated outright
Most platforms leave this to be inferred from a broad licence. Reddit writes it down. Your posts are not just hosted here — the terms say in writing they can be used to build models.
Syndication to partners
The licence reaches “other companies, organizations, or individuals who partner with Reddit” — which is not a defined list. You cannot find out who is holding your work.
Moral rights waived
This is the credit clause. You give up the right to be named as the author, and separately agree they can delete the metadata that would have identified you.
Reddit can hand the agreement to someone else
Reddit User Agreement — Section 18, Miscellaneous, US version (effective July 1, 2026) ↗
…You may not assign or transfer any of your rights or obligations under these Terms without our consent. We may freely assign any of our rights and obligations under these Terms.
One direction only
You cannot assign your side without Reddit’s consent. Reddit can assign its side “freely.” The Section 5 licence to your posts is one of the rights being assigned, and Section 5 calls it “transferable” on its own account.
US version: no notice
Read straight, this is the sentence that lets the licence end up with a company you never agreed to. In the US version you are not told and are not asked.
EEA, UK and Switzerland differ
The separate EEA/UK/Swiss agreement says the same thing with a clock on it: “Reddit may, without restriction, assign any of our rights and obligations under these Terms, at its sole discretion, with 30 days’ prior notice.” Thirty days’ warning — not a veto. It is Section 17 there, because that version has one section fewer.
What Reddit grants you back
Reddit User Agreement — Section 3, Your Use of the Services (effective July 1, 2026) ↗
Subject to your complete and ongoing compliance with these Terms, Reddit grants you a personal, non-transferable, non-exclusive, revocable, limited license to: (a) install and use a copy of our mobile application associated with the Services that is obtained from a legitimate marketplace on a mobile device owned or controlled by you; and (b) access and use the Services. We reserve all rights not expressly granted to you by these Terms.
Read the direction
This grant runs the other way — Reddit to you. It is the mirror image of Section 5, and every adjective is reversed.
Revocable, non-transferable, limited
What you receive can be cancelled, can’t be passed on, and is conditional on “complete and ongoing compliance”. What you give is perpetual, irrevocable, and sublicensable. Same contract, four pages apart.
Advertising against your posts
The Services may also contain sponsored Third-Party Content or advertisements. The type, degree, and targeting of advertisements are subject to change, and you acknowledge and agree that we may place advertisements in connection with the display of any Content or information on the Services, including Your Content.
Ads on your work
You agree in advance that ads can be placed against anything you post. Section 6 gives you no share of that revenue and no way to opt out.
Subject to change
The type, degree, and targeting of those ads can change without your agreement, because you already gave it here.
Paying you is a different contract
Section 6 is not the whole money story. Section 5 lets Reddit “deem your content ineligible for monetization,” and Section 16 puts any “Earn Terms for any Earnings Program” in a separate agreement you would have to accept as well. So payment exists on Reddit — just not in the clause that sells ads against your posts.
Deleting your account doesn’t end it
Reddit User Agreement — Section 17, Termination, US version (effective July 1, 2026) ↗
The following sections will survive any termination of these Terms or of your Account: 5 (Your Content), 7 (Things You Cannot Do), 12 (Indemnity), 13 (Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability), 14 (Governing Law and Venue), 17 (Termination), and 18 (Miscellaneous).
Section 5 survives
Section 5 is the content licence. It is explicitly listed as surviving termination — so is the indemnity. Leaving Reddit ends your access, not the grant. The EEA, UK and Swiss version renumbers the list but keeps 5 (Your Content) on it.
You can’t do to Reddit what Reddit does with you
Reddit User Agreement — Section 7, Things You Cannot Do (effective July 1, 2026) ↗
Access, search, or collect data from the Services by any means (automated or otherwise) except as permitted in these Terms or in a separate agreement with Reddit (we conditionally grant permission to crawl the Services in accordance with the parameters set forth in our robots.txt file, but scraping the Services without Reddit’s prior written consent is prohibited); or
The asymmetry
Collecting Reddit’s data in bulk is prohibited without written consent. Licensing your posts in bulk to AI companies requires nothing from you beyond having posted.
Survives termination too
Section 7 is on the survival list in Section 17. This restriction outlives your account as well.
Due Dilly reads the paperwork and reports what it says. This is not legal advice.