2026-09-23 · Legal · 9 min read

This guide is general information, not legal advice — for high-stakes campaigns, run it past an actual lawyer. With that said, the landscape in 2026 is stable enough to navigate with confidence.

1. The platform license (the easy part)

On Slloy: generations made with paid credits include a commercial-use license covering ads, e-commerce and social media, and failed runs are auto-refunded. Free-tier generations are for evaluation. When you deliver to clients, the practical hygiene is simple: generate on a paid balance, keep the order records, and point your client to the platform's terms when they ask where the license comes from. Other platforms differ meaningfully — some restrict commercial use to top tiers, some exclude it entirely on free plans. Always check before, not after, the billboard goes up.

2. Ownership (the part that surprises people)

In the United States, the Copyright Office's position is that purely AI-generated material — without meaningful human creative input — cannot be copyrighted. That does not mean you can't sell it; it means anyone else could theoretically use a similar image without infringing. Practical implications: your protective moat is your prompts, your reference assets and your brand, not copyright on the raw output. If you make substantial human modifications — compositing, retouching, arrangement into a larger work — those human-authored layers can be protectable. Jurisdictions outside the US treat AI authorship differently; the EU and others are still converging.

3. The safety checks before any delivery

• Step 1 — Upload rights: every reference photo must be yours or licensed. Photos of identifiable people require their consent — this applies doubly for animated or transformed likenesses.

• Step 2 — Trademark and design: ask the model for “a soda can” and you may get something suspiciously brand-shaped. Generate generic, or specify your own branding explicitly, and proof the output.

• Step 3 — Advertising honesty: AI-staged product scenes must not misrepresent the product (a “whipped cream” topping that's actually foam render is a consumer-protection issue, not just an aesthetic one). Some platforms and ad networks also require AI-content disclosure — check current policy.

• Step 4 — Client contracts: state in writing that output is AI-assisted, identify the platform used, and attach the applicable license terms. Ten minutes of contract language prevents the ten-day argument.

The mindset shift

Licensing AI content is becoming routine commercial practice: agencies deliver it daily, stock-adjacent marketplaces have AI sections, and ad networks have published disclosure norms. The professionals who get burned are consistently the ones who skipped question 3 — usually via an uploaded photo they didn't have rights to. Get the uploads right, generate on a paid plan, document your chain — and sell with a clear conscience.

Jurisdiction quick notes (September 2026)

The common thread across all five: document your human input. Prompt drafts, iteration history, edit layers, selection decisions — the record of creative direction is what transforms “AI output” into “work you directed,” and it's the difference that matters in every framework above.

Your delivery-day record-keeping checklist

• Platform account in good standing with paid balance at generation time (screenshot the plan/pricing page version you relied on).

• Generation history preserved: timestamps, model used, prompt text — export or screenshot before archiving the project.

• Rights file for every uploaded reference: your own photo, signed model release, or stock license number.

• Client contract clause naming AI assistance and pointing to the platform's commercial-use terms.

• Disclosure compliance for the destination: ad networks, marketplaces and some social platforms have evolving AI-content labeling rules — check the current policy of wherever the work publishes.

The three questions clients actually ask

In practice, client conversations about AI content come down to three questions, and each has a one-line answer you can give with confidence. “Is this legal?” — Yes, when generated on a paid plan with licensed references and used per the platform's commercial terms. “Do we own it?” — You have full contractual commercial rights from the platform; raw AI output isn't copyrightable in some jurisdictions, so our brand and assets provide the protection. “Could someone copy it?” — They could prompt something similar; that's true of all photography too, and it's why the strategy layer (brand, series, consistency) is where the value sits. Teams that internalize these three answers deliver AI-assisted work daily without drama — because there isn't any, as long as the three checks above were done before delivery, not after.

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