If you use an AI tool to write a blog post, voice an advert or put a product on a new background, who owns the result, can you sell it, and what happens to the files you uploaded? The answers sit in each vendor's terms of service, and they are far less consistent than the "commercial use" badges on pricing pages suggest. The NerdBible editorial desk read the terms, licence and help pages of twelve AI tools on 5 October and compared what each says about ownership, free-plan use, training on your content and labelling. The short version: only three of the twelve state plainly in their terms that you own what the tool generates, one says a third party owns it, and the rest are silent or contradict their own marketing.
How we did it
We took the top three products, by position on the day we read them, from four NerdBible rankings: AI content creation (Surfer SEO, Frase and Copy.ai), AI video and audio (ElevenLabs, Synthesia and Murf AI), AI product photography (Photoroom, Pixelcut and Claid.ai) and AI advertising tools (AdCreative.ai, Plai and quickads.ai). For each we read the vendor's own terms of service, acceptable use policy, pricing page and, where the terms were silent, its help centre. We asked four questions:
- Do you own the outputs? Does the contract give you ownership of what the tool generates, or only a licence to use it?
- Commercial use on free and paid plans: does the vendor restrict business use on its free tier?
- Training: may the vendor use your inputs or outputs to train or improve its AI, and can you opt out?
- Labelling: does the vendor require you to disclose that content was made with AI?
We quote only a few words from each document and link to it. Terms change without much notice, so treat this as a snapshot and read the current version before you rely on it. Where a document said nothing on a question, the table says so: silence is a finding, not an error.
The table
| Tool | You own outputs? | Free plan commercial use | Vendor may train on your content? | Labelling rule |
|---|
| Surfer SEO | Terms silent | Terms silent | Terms silent | None found |
| Frase | Terms silent on outputs; you own what you submit | Terms silent | No general model training; de-identified data used | None found |
| Copy.ai | No: licence only, OpenAI named as owner | Terms silent | Licence includes "improving" services | Do not pass AI text off as human-written |
| ElevenLabs | Yes | No; credit required | Yes, with opt-out | Disclose AI agents; no deceiving about AI voices |
| Synthesia | Yes | Terms silent; free videos watermarked | Usage data only, within the service | Do not remove watermarks |
| Murf AI | You own what you submit; outputs carry commercial rights | Paid plans only stated | Used "only for providing the Services" | None found |
| Photoroom | Yes (help centre) | No: personal use only | Yes, with opt-out | None found |
| Pixelcut | Terms silent on outputs | Conflicting pages | Terms silent | None found |
| Claid.ai | You own "Your Content"; outputs not addressed | Terms silent | De-identified use to improve products | None found |
| AdCreative.ai | Conflicting: marketing yes, terms unclear | Terms silent | Yes, no opt-out stated | None found |
| Plai | Terms silent on outputs; you keep what you upload | Terms silent | Terms silent | None found |
| quickads.ai | Yes, if you comply and pay | Rights tied to paying fees | No training of shared models | Use AI labels where law or platform requires |
What stands out
Ownership is rarely spelled out
Only three vendors say in their terms that you own the generated material. ElevenLabs says "you retain all rights in and to your Output". Synthesia defines Customer Data as both inputs and outputs and says the customer "will own all Customer Data". quickads.ai has the clearest clause of the twelve: provided you comply with the terms and "pay all applicable fees, you own the Outputs created for you", may use them "for any lawful commercial purpose, including paid advertising", and keep those rights after you cancel. Photoroom's terms cover only what you submit, but its help centre says it claims no ownership of content customers "provide or create".
Copy.ai goes the other way. Its terms grant you a non-exclusive licence to use, sell and modify Generated Content "for your lawful business purposes", then state that its licensor, "OpenAI LLC, exclusively owns all right, title and interest in and to Generated Content". It is also the oldest document in our set. If owning your copy matters, that is worth raising with the vendor before you build a content library on it.
AdCreative.ai's marketing and terms point in different directions. Its AI video page says every video "is cleared for commercial use and owned by you", but its subscriber terms say AdCreative.ai owns all rights in "derivative data and any work derived from the use of this Services". We could not find a clause in the subscriber terms that assigns generated creatives to the customer. The other six (Surfer, Frase, Murf, Pixelcut, Claid and Plai) address only what you upload, or nothing at all, and leave output ownership unstated. Surfer's own blog says articles from its AI writer are "copyright-free", which describes the legal position of the text, not a promise in its contract.
Ownership in a contract is not the same as copyright
Even a clear ownership clause cannot create a copyright the law does not recognise. In the US, the Copyright Office concluded in its report on copyrightability that AI outputs can be protected "only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements", and "not the mere provision of prompts". ElevenLabs and quickads.ai both warn that another user may receive the same or similar output. In practice, what a vendor can give you is a promise not to claim the work itself; the edits and arrangement you add are what make it yours in law.
Free plans are often for personal use only
Three vendors restrict free accounts in writing. ElevenLabs' terms say free users "may only use the Services for non-commercial purposes", and its help centre requires free-plan content to credit "elevenlabs.io" or "11.ai" in the title. Photoroom's terms limit free accounts to "personal, non commercial purposes", which its help centre repeats. Murf's help centre says "all paid plans offer commercial rights"; it does not say the free plan does.
Pixelcut sends mixed signals. Its AI image generator page advertises a "free AI image generator for commercial use", while its pricing page lists "Commercial license" under the Pro and Business plans but not under Free. Synthesia's terms do not separate free and paid use, but its pricing page says free videos "carry a Synthesia watermark". quickads.ai ties ownership to paying "all applicable fees". The remaining vendors offer free trials rather than free plans and say nothing specific.
Training on your content: three say yes
Photoroom's terms say that by using the service you "authorize Photoroom to use User Content to improve, train and develop" its products, with an opt-out under Data Control in your account settings. ElevenLabs' licence covers using your content "to improve the Services, and to develop new services and products", and you can opt out from the Data use menu, though the opt-out does not undo earlier use. AdCreative.ai's terms permit "training, developing, and improving our artificial intelligence systems" using your Ad Data, and we found no opt-out in them.
Three vendors limit training in writing. Frase "does not use Customer Data to develop or train generalized" AI models, though it may use de-identified, aggregated data. quickads.ai says "We do not use your Inputs or Outputs to train generative AI models that are made available to other customers." Synthesia's terms rule out using customer data to create AI models "that may be provisioned independent of the Services". Copy.ai and Claid sit in between: Copy.ai's licence over your content includes "improving" its and its licensors' services, and Claid may use your content "solely in de-identified form" to improve its products. Surfer, Pixelcut and Plai do not mention training in the terms we read, and Murf's terms say your information is used "only for providing the Services".
Labelling is mostly left to you
Only quickads.ai has a general labelling clause: where "the law or an advertising platform requires it", you must disclose that an ad was made or altered with AI, including by using the platform's AI-content labels. ElevenLabs' use policy requires organisations using its AI agents to disclose to users that they are talking to AI, and bans using a voice to deceive people about whether it was AI-generated. Copy.ai prohibits "misleading end users that any Generated Content was human-generated" where no human is in the loop. Synthesia's acceptable use policy bans removing watermarks or other provenance markers. The other eight set no labelling rule, which does not mean none applies: ad platforms and local law may require one regardless.
What to check before you rely on AI output
- Find the ownership clause, not the pricing badge. Search the terms for "Output", "Generated Content" or "own".
- Check the plan you are on. Content made on a free plan may never become commercially usable, even after you upgrade; ElevenLabs says so explicitly.
- Turn off training if you can before uploading product photos, scripts or customer data, and note that opt-outs usually apply only from that point on.
- Keep a copy of the terms on the day you generate anything important. Several of these documents were revised in recent months and will change again.
- Add your own work. Editing, selecting and arranging AI output is what gives you the strongest claim to it.
This article compares what vendors' published documents say. It is not legal advice; for a decision that matters to your business, such as licensing content to a client or registering a copyright, speak to a qualified lawyer in your country.
