This page answers, tool by tool, whether you can sell, advertise with or ship what an AI image or video generator makes for you: on the free plan, on a paid plan, with or without a watermark, who owns the result, and whether the company will defend you if it infringes. We read each tool's own terms of service, pricing page and help pages on November 4, 2026; every source is listed at the end with that date.
Morphed is one of the 11 tools in the table, and we make it. It is listed in alphabetical order with the others and gets the same columns, including where its terms fall short.
This is a plain-English summary, not legal advice. Terms change often, and for client work, trademarks or anything involving a real person, check the current terms and talk to a lawyer.
Can you use AI-generated images commercially?
Yes, on every paid plan we checked. The free plan is where tools split: ChatGPT, Ideogram, Canva, Adobe Firefly and Runway allow commercial use of free output, Leonardo allows it under a licence while keeping ownership, and Kling and Luma do not allow it at all. Midjourney and Morphed have no free renders, so the question only arises on a paid plan.
Two other things matter as much as the yes or no. First, owning an output under a tool's terms is not the same as holding a copyright in it (more on that below). Second, no tool's licence covers third-party rights: a logo, a character or a real person's face in your output is still someone else's.
License terms by tool
Checked on November 4, 2026 against each tool's own terms and pricing pages. "Not stated" means the pages we read do not say either way.
| Tool | Free plan: commercial use | Paid plan: commercial use | Free-plan watermark | Who owns the output | IP indemnity for you |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adobe Firefly | Yes for features without the beta label; the FAQ does not separate free and paid | Yes | Not stated; terms bar removing Content Credentials metadata | You; Adobe warns the output may not be protectable | Eligible teams and enterprise plans only, capped at $10,000 per output; excludes partner models and beta features |
| Canva | Yes, for any lawful purpose | Yes | Not stated | You, except output that incorporates Canva's licensed content | None in the AI terms we read; you indemnify Canva |
| Google Gemini app | Not stated in the terms we read | Not stated | Yes: visible watermark plus invisible SynthID | Not stated for generated images | None for the consumer app |
| Google Imagen and Veo (API) | Not restricted in the Gemini API terms | Not restricted | Not stated in the API terms | Google says it will not claim ownership | Yes on Google Cloud's Agent Platform API (formerly Vertex AI) for generally available models; not on the Gemini Developer API or AI Studio |
| Ideogram | Yes | Yes | Not stated | Ideogram claims no ownership; images are public by default unless you pay for private generation | None; you indemnify Ideogram |
| Kling AI | No, not without written permission, and output must be labelled as made with Kling AI | Yes for members, except building competing products | Brand label required; removing it is a paid-member benefit | You; Kling keeps a non-exclusive licence | None; you indemnify Kling |
| Leonardo.Ai | Yes, under a royalty-free licence | Yes | Not stated | Free plan: Leonardo. Paid plan: you | None found in the terms |
| Luma Dream Machine | No; commercial use only for output made on a paid subscription | Yes, from the Plus plan | Luma reserves the right to embed watermarks and provenance data | You, subject to the paid-subscription condition | None; you indemnify Luma |
| Midjourney | No free plan on the web or Discord | Yes; companies with more than $1M a year in revenue need the Pro or Mega plan | No free plan | You; Midjourney keeps a broad licence, and images are public unless you use Stealth mode (Pro and Mega) | None; you indemnify Midjourney |
| Morphed | No free renders | Yes, personal and commercial | No free plan; paid output has no visible watermark | You, for images and videos made with paid credits | None; you indemnify Morphed |
| OpenAI (ChatGPT, API) | Yes; the terms do not distinguish free and paid | Yes | No visible watermark stated; images carry Content Credentials and an invisible SynthID watermark | You; OpenAI assigns its rights in the output to you | API customers only, with exclusions (for example trademark claims and output you knew infringed); none for ChatGPT consumer plans |
| Runway | Not restricted by the terms | Yes | Paid plans list "No watermarks"; the free plan does not | You; Runway keeps a licence to use inputs and outputs, including for training | None; you indemnify Runway |
Which free AI image generators allow commercial use?
Four of the tools we checked let you use free-plan images commercially and give you ownership: ChatGPT, Ideogram, Canva and Adobe Firefly. Leonardo also allows commercial use on its free tier, but under a licence, with Leonardo owning the images.
Each has a catch worth knowing before you put an image in an ad:
- ChatGPT. You own the output, and every image carries Content Credentials metadata plus an invisible SynthID watermark that identifies it as OpenAI-made. Platforms and clients that check provenance will see it.
- Ideogram. Ownership is clear, but free images are public in its gallery by default, so a competitor can find and remix your ad concept. Private generation starts on the paid Plus plan. Its terms also tell you to weigh commercial use carefully and disclaim liability.
- Canva. You own output unless it incorporates Canva's own licensed content, in which case Canva's content licence applies instead. Canva's AI terms also suggest professional advice before commercial use.
- Adobe Firefly. Commercial use covers features without the beta label. Adobe's IP indemnity, the main reason businesses pick Firefly, applies only to eligible teams and enterprise plans, not to free or individual accounts.
- Leonardo. Free users can use images commercially, but Leonardo owns them. That matters if you want to register, sell exclusive rights to, or stop someone else from using the same image.
Google's Gemini app adds a visible watermark to generated images, and the terms we read do not address commercial use of its output, so we would not use free Gemini images in paid work without checking further.
Are AI-generated images royalty-free?
Yes, in the sense that matters for stock-style use: none of the 11 tools charge a royalty or per-use fee on outputs you publish. The real differences are ownership, exclusivity and visibility.
Ownership decides whether you can sell exclusive rights to a client. Leonardo's free tier and anything that incorporates Canva's licensed content fail that test. Exclusivity is weak everywhere: Leonardo and Canva state outright that other users may get similar outputs, and no tool promises a unique image. Visibility matters because Midjourney (outside Stealth mode) and Ideogram (outside private generation) publish your images for other users to see and remix.
If "royalty-free" for you means "safe to hand a client", the best fit is a paid plan that gives you ownership and keeps outputs private. If it means "safe for a large company", the deciding column is indemnity, where only Adobe's business plans, Google's Cloud API and OpenAI's API offer anything.
Can you use an AI face generator commercially?
You can use generated faces of people who do not exist under the same terms as any other output: owned by you on the tools marked "You" above, and subject to each tool's free-plan rules. The terms that matter more here are about real people.
Morphed's acceptable use policy is explicit: you need the explicit consent of anyone whose likeness you upload or generate, and you may not generate public figures or celebrities without permission. A synthetic face that happens to look like a real person can still raise right-of-publicity problems in an ad, and no tool's licence or indemnity covers that.
For a clear EULA, look for three things: an explicit statement that you own the output, a statement on commercial use for your plan tier, and the likeness rules in the acceptable use policy. On Morphed, the AI human generator and AI headshot generator run under the terms in the table.
Can you use AI video commercially without a watermark?
Yes, on paid plans. The free tiers of the main video tools either restrict commercial use or mark the output:
- Kling. Free output cannot be used commercially without written permission and must be labelled as made with Kling AI. Paid members can use output commercially and remove the label.
- Luma. Commercial use applies only to output made during a paid subscription, from the Plus plan up. Luma also reserves the right to embed watermarks and provenance data.
- Runway. The terms do not restrict commercial use, but "No watermarks" is listed only on paid plans.
- Google. The Gemini app marks generated media with a visible watermark and SynthID.
- OpenAI. Sora is discontinued, so there is no OpenAI video plan to compare.
- Morphed. There are no free renders. Video made with paid credits is yours to use commercially, with no visible watermark added.
Removing a visible watermark is not the same as having the right to. Several terms, including Adobe's and Morphed's, prohibit removing watermarks or provenance metadata, and invisible watermarks such as SynthID are designed to survive common edits. If you need clean commercial video, pay for the plan that grants it. For what each paid route costs per second, see our AI video cost per second breakdown, and for free options with their limits, best free AI video generators.
Who owns AI output, and can you copyright it?
Owning an output under a tool's terms means the company will not claim it and passes you whatever rights it has. It does not mean the law gives you a copyright.
In the United States, the Copyright Office's position is set out in its Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability report (January 2025) and its March 2023 registration guidance:
- Human authorship is required. Material generated entirely by AI is not protected by copyright.
- Prompts alone are not enough. The Office treats prompts as instructions, closer to briefing an artist than to making the work, so writing even a detailed prompt does not make you the author of the image.
- Your own contribution can be protected. Human-made elements, creative selection and arrangement of AI material, and creative edits to it can qualify. The Office decides case by case.
- Disclose AI material when registering. The 2023 guidance asks applicants to identify and exclude AI-generated content that is more than minimal.
In practice: you can use AI output commercially on the right plan, but you may not be able to stop a competitor from copying a purely AI-generated image. If exclusivity matters, add real human authorship through editing, compositing or combining it with your own photography and design. The Office's AI hub listed no newer copyrightability guidance when we checked on November 4, 2026.
What no AI license covers: trademarks, characters and likeness
A tool can only pass you the rights it has. It cannot license you someone else's trademark, a copyrighted character, or a real person's likeness, and the terms we read put responsibility for what you generate on you.
The indemnities that exist are narrow. OpenAI's API indemnity excludes trademark claims and output you knew or should have known infringed. Adobe's caps payouts at $10,000 per output and excludes partner models and beta features. Google's covers only generally available models on its Cloud API and Workspace. Outside those, the indemnity runs the other way: you agree to cover the company if your output causes a claim.
Safe practice for commercial work: keep brand names, logos and recognisable characters out of prompts unless you own them, get written consent from anyone whose face or voice you use, and keep the prompt and edit history for anything you publish. For the copyright fight around one video model in particular, see Seedance copyright.
What Morphed's terms say, and where they fall short
Under Morphed's terms of service, you own the images and videos you create with paid credits and may use them for personal and commercial purposes. Morphed does not add a visible watermark, though some of the underlying models embed invisible provenance data. The acceptable use policy requires consent for any real person's likeness and bars removing watermarks or provenance metadata.
The cons, stated plainly:
- No free tier. Creating an account and chatting with the agent are free, but every render costs credits. Plans start at $9 a month, and new subscribers get 30% off their first 3 months on web checkout. See pricing.
- No IP indemnity. As with most consumer tools, you indemnify Morphed, not the other way round.
- Older terms. Morphed's terms of service were last updated on December 13, 2024, earlier than most of the terms in the table.
The Kling, Google and OpenAI rows describe those companies' own apps and APIs. Morphed also runs models from those vendors, and output made on Morphed falls under Morphed's terms of service.
How we checked
On November 4, 2026 we opened each tool's terms of service, pricing page and relevant help pages, and recorded what they say about commercial use by plan, watermarks, ownership and indemnity. Where a page did not address a column, we marked it "Not stated" rather than guess. We did not test whether outputs carry watermarks; watermark entries come from the tools' own statements.
Sources (all checked November 4, 2026)
- Adobe, Generative AI product-specific terms: https://www.adobe.com/go/adobe-gen-ai-addl-terms
- Adobe, Firefly FAQ: https://helpx.adobe.com/firefly/web/get-started/learn-the-basics/adobe-firefly-faq.html
- Canva, AI product terms: https://www.canva.com/policies/ai-product-terms/
- Canva, terms of use: https://www.canva.com/policies/terms-of-use/
- Google, Gemini image generation overview: https://gemini.google/overview/image-generation/
- Google, Gemini API additional terms: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/terms
- Google Cloud, generative AI indemnified services: https://cloud.google.com/terms/generative-ai-indemnified-services
- Ideogram, terms of service: https://ideogram.ai/legal/tos/
- Ideogram, pricing and FAQ: https://ideogram.ai/pricing
- Kling AI, terms of service: https://kling.ai/docs/user-policy
- Kling AI, terms of paid service: https://kling.ai/docs/payment-policy
- Leonardo.Ai, terms of service: https://leonardo.ai/terms-of-service
- Leonardo.Ai, pricing and FAQ: https://leonardo.ai/pricing
- Luma, terms of service: https://lumalabs.ai/legal/tos
- Luma, pricing: https://lumalabs.ai/pricing
- Midjourney, terms of service: https://docs.midjourney.com/hc/en-us/articles/32083055291277-Terms-of-Service
- Midjourney, using images and videos commercially: https://docs.midjourney.com/hc/en-us/articles/27870375276557-Using-Images-Videos-Commercially
- Morphed, terms of service: https://morphed.app/tos
- Morphed, acceptable use policy: https://morphed.app/acceptable-use-policy
- OpenAI, terms of use: https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use/
- OpenAI, service terms: https://openai.com/policies/service-terms/
- OpenAI, provenance signals help article: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8912793-provenance-signals-in-openai-generated-content
- Runway, terms of use: https://runway.com/terms-of-use
- Runway, pricing: https://runway.com/pricing
- US Copyright Office, Part 2: Copyrightability (January 2025): https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intelligence-Part-2-Copyrightability-Report.pdf
- US Copyright Office, registration guidance for works containing AI-generated material (March 2023): https://www.copyright.gov/ai/ai_policy_guidance.pdf
This article summarises published terms and is not legal advice.