Saudi ArabiaCopyright Law (2026), licence terms for software, applications and databases
In force since .
A contract terms of service (ToS) rule binding public and private bodies.
- How the hook was established
- express
- What makes it apply
- Content origin
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Follow the licence terms that accompany software, applications and databases in Saudi Arabia, including terms that appear electronically on download, installation or use; a user who agrees to them is bound unless they are contrary to public order or morals.
- A licence term that waives a right the Copyright Law and its Regulation confer, or restricts a use the statutory exceptions allow, has no effect.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MAP 4.1Approaches for mapping AI technology and legal risks of its components – including the use of third-party data or software – are in place, followed, and documented, as are risks of infringement of a third party’s intellectual property or other rights.
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
What record it asks for
Logging duty
Article 12 of the Law subjects computer programs, applications and databases to the licence that accompanies them and binds the buyer or user to its terms, and Implementing Regulation Article 29 treats the user's agreement to terms shown electronically as binding and gives no effect to a term that waives statutory rights. Neither article requires a licensor, a user or a platform to create, keep, produce or review a log or record, and neither names an audit or anyone entitled to see a record. The Law's own scope clause (Article 2) reaches works of Saudi or resident authors and works first published in the Kingdom, and that content-origin test is the hook.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Article 12 subjects computer programs, applications and databases to the licence accompanying or affixed to them, whether it appears on the carrying medium, on downloading the program or on storing it in the computer. It binds the buyer or user to the licence's terms unless they are contrary to public order or morals. The Implementing Regulation's Article 29 applies to programs, applications and databases installed on a user's device or available over networks or cloud services.
It treats the user's agreement to licence terms that appear electronically at download, installation or operation as binding. It gives no effect to a licence term that waives rights the Law and Regulation confer or restricts use the statutory exceptions allow.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web or trains models.
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