Who Owns the Video Your AI Ad Tool Made? A Per-Model Rights Map

Quick answer:you almost certainly own the video, but the clause that says so has a condition on the end of it, and the condition changes with the model you picked. Replicate's Terms of Service grant you the Output "subject to any Third Party Terms (as determined by the Models you use to generate the Output)". Follow that pointer and the answers diverge sharply. OpenAI assigns Output to you outright. Google says it will not claim ownership. Kling says you own the content and then, two sections later, says you may not use the Output commercially without its written permission. For several other models, the provider publishes nothing about output rights at all. This is an informational read of the documents, not legal advice.

The one clause that makes this a per-model question

Eleven of the twelve video models we run are called through Replicate, so Replicate's terms are the first document in the chain. Section 5.1 is the grant:

"Subject to rights granted us under Section 5.2, to the extent needed to ensure the foregoing, Replicate hereby grants to you all right, title and interest, if any, in and to Output, including your use of Output for commercial purposes such as sale or publication, subject to any Third Party Terms (as determined by the Models you use to generate the Output) which may apply to such Output."

That is a generous grant with a trapdoor. Section 2.5 makes the trapdoor explicit: "You are solely responsible for complying with all Third Party Terms and Replicate is not, and will not be deemed to be, a party to any separate Third Party Terms."In other words, the platform hands you the rights it has and tells you to go read the model's own terms yourself. Which raises an obvious question: where are they?

What the model pages actually publish

We checked the public Replicate page for every model in our catalogue in August 2026, looking for a licence, terms, or policy link. Here is the result, which is not what we expected:

One page out of twelve links the Third Party Terms that Replicate's section 5.1 makes decisive. And the one that does links to app.klingai.com/global/dev/document-api/protocols/paidServiceProtocol, which redirects to a Kling AI sign-in wall when you open it without an account. So the single document that determines your commercial rights in a Kling 3.0 render is one you cannot read before you render.

That is the practical finding here, and nobody publishes it because nobody else is running twelve of these side by side. The contract chain is real, but the middle link is mostly missing from where you would look for it.

The provider terms, read directly

So we went to the providers. Where a company publishes an output-rights clause, here is what it says. Where it does not, we say so rather than guessing.

One caveat on that table, and it matters. Where a model page links nothing, the document in the middle column is the provider's own published output-rights terms for its own access route: OpenAI's API agreement, Google's Gemini API terms, xAI's consumer terms. It is the best public statement of that company's position on who owns Output. It is notconfirmed to be the Third Party Terms that Replicate's section 5.1 defers to, because nobody in the chain publishes which document that is. Treat it as the provider's stated posture rather than as the operative contract for an aggregated render.

The Kling contradiction is worth reading twice

Kling AI's Terms of Service, last updated 21 April 2026, contain the cleanest ownership language of any document in this set. Section 4.4: "You own all intellectual property rights and other proprietary interests in and to the Content under applicable law... We do not claim ownership of the Content."

Two sections later, section 4.6 ends with this: "Specifically, without our written permission, you may not use, reproduce, distribute, and create derivative works of, and make modifications to, the Output for any commercial purposes."

Both sentences are in the same document. Ownership and permission to exploit are legally distinct, so the two are not strictly incompatible, but the practical effect for a media buyer is that owning a Kling clip is not obviously the same as being allowed to run it. Section 4.5 adds an attribution duty on top: where the Output is not already carrying Kling branding, you "shall prominently indicate that the Output is generated by 'Kling AI'". And section 4.7.1 grants Kling a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence over both your Input and the Output for the life of its business.

One important caveat we will not paper over: those clauses come from the consumer terms at kling.ai. API access is governed by the separate paid-service protocol that Replicate links and that sits behind a login. If the API document says something different, we cannot see it, and neither can you.

Attribution is a live requirement, not a courtesy

Two of the four providers that publish an output-ownership clause also ask for a credit. Kling's is quoted above. xAI's consumer terms say: "When using Output or xAI's name, logos, trademarks, or other brand elements, you are required to obtain our permission and attribute your generation of the Output to the Service, as detailed in our Brand Guidelines." The same document notes that xAI may itself apply a disclosure stating the content was AI generated, and that its Enterprise Terms of Service, not the consumer ones, govern API access.

An on-screen model credit is not something most performance creative has room for. If you are running these models in paid media, this is a question to put to counsel rather than to a support chat.

Does the chain of title actually close?

Here is a wrinkle specific to buying models through an aggregator. The OpenAI Services Agreement assigns Output to the Customer, and in the Replicate path the customer with the OpenAI account is Replicate, not you. Section 4.1 reads: "As between Customer and OpenAI, to the extent permitted by applicable law, Customer: (a) retains all ownership rights in Input; and (b) owns all Output. OpenAI hereby assigns to Customer all OpenAI's right, title, and interest, if any, in and to Output."The opening words matter: the clause allocates rights between OpenAI and its own customer, and does not purport to reach past them. Replicate's section 5.1 then passes that on to you. Read in sequence the two clauses appear to close the loop, which is presumably the intent. It is also a good illustration of why "the tool said I own it" is a weaker answer than "here are the two clauses that get the rights to me".

Ownership is not custody, and Sora proves it

OpenAI's Replicate pages for Sora 2 and Sora 2 Pro both carry the line "OpenAI is discontinuing Sora 2 on September 24, 2026. After that date, the Sora 2 API will no longer be available."OpenAI's own help article goes further: after any final export window, "we will permanently delete any data associated with your use of Sora."

You keep the rights the assignment gave you. You do not keep the file unless you saved it. Archive your own masters, and do not build a recurring creative workflow on a model with a published shutdown date.

Seedance 2.0 sits on a different contract entirely

One production detail that changes the answer: we run Seedance 2.0 through BytePlus rather than Replicate, so Replicate's section 5.1 grant does not apply to it at all. The governing document is the BytePlus Terms of Service, effective 23 August 2022, which predates the current generation of video models and says nothing about who owns generated Output. What it does contain, at section 4, is a licence to BytePlus that is "non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, sub-licensable, and transferable"over data you upload. If you are uploading a product photo or a founder's face as a reference frame, that clause is the one to read.

What we say, and what you should do

Our own position is in our terms, section 4.1: you retain full ownership of the video content you generate, and we claim no ownership rights in it. Section 4.2 puts responsibility for platform and jurisdictional AI disclosure on you, which is the honest split, and by August 2026 that responsibility is no longer hypothetical: Article 50(4) of the EU AI Act has applied since 2 August and New York's synthetic performer lawsince 9 June, and an invented AI presenter is caught by both. We also state that every AI creator in the library is licensed for commercial use, and that where a likeness derives from a real performer it is used under licence. What no tool can do, ours included, is override a model provider's own terms, because we are not a party to them either.

Four things worth doing before the next campaign ships:

• Record which model rendered which ad. If a rights question ever lands, the first thing you need is the model name, and the second is the date. Both are trivial to log and impossible to reconstruct later.
• Read the model's terms, not just the tool's.The tool's terms tell you what the tool claims. The model's terms tell you what you can do with the file.
• Keep your own masters. Vendor libraries are convenience, not custody.
• Separate the two questions."Do I own it?" is a contract question. "Can I run it?" is a platform and disclosure question. Answer both.

Sources

• Replicate, Terms of Service (sections 2.5 and 5.1)
• OpenAI, Services Agreement (updated 1 December 2025, section 4)
• OpenAI Help Center, "What to know about the Sora discontinuation"
• Google, Gemini API Additional Terms of Service (effective 23 March 2026)
• Kling AI, Terms of Service (last updated 21 April 2026, sections 4.4 to 4.7)
• xAI, Terms of Service (Consumer) (effective 26 June 2026)
• BytePlus, Terms of Service (effective 23 August 2022)
• Replicate model pages for all twelve models listed above, checked August 2026

Every document above was read directly in August 2026. Terms change without notice and the dates are your check for whether this page has gone stale. Nothing here is legal advice; if you are running these models at scale, take proper advice on the Kling and attribution points in particular.

Ownership is one of three questions worth answering before a model goes into rotation. The second is cost, covered in our cost benchmarks across all twelve models. The third is disclosure, and TikTok's AI content disclosure rules are the strictest version of it. A related but different trap sits one layer up, at the plan tier rather than the model: some free tiers withhold commercial rights outright. Model-level detail lives on the Veo 3.1 and Kling 3.0 pages. UGC Vids AI runs all twelve from one account, from $49/month for 5,000 credits, free for 3 days.