The order to read a vendor's terms in
A plan table, the terms of service, an acceptable-use page and a brand-assets page can each say something about commercial use. They are written at different times by different people, and the narrower one is the one that binds. As of 2026-09-12.
| Order | Page | What it gives |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plan table | The claim, in marketing language |
| 2 | Terms of service | The qualification that binds |
| 3 | Acceptable use | Category carve-outs |
| 4 | Brand assets | Rules about the vendor's own marks, not your output |
Inclusion rule. The four page types a commercial-use answer is usually spread across. Order. Reading order.
1Four kinds of page, written by different people
The plan table is marketing copy and moves whenever pricing does. The terms of service are legal text and move rarely. An acceptable-use or content policy carves out categories regardless of plan. A brand-assets page governs the vendor's own marks rather than your output.
They are maintained on different schedules, which is why a plan table can promise something the terms of service qualify. Treating any one of them as the whole answer is the most common way this goes wrong.
2Read the narrow one last and let it win
A useful order is plan table first to find the claim, terms of service next to find the qualification, then the acceptable-use page for category carve-outs. Where two disagree, the more specific and more recently dated text is the one to plan against.
This ordering is about reducing surprise rather than about interpretation. It puts the broad promise first because that is what a reader remembers, and the qualification last because that is what survives.
3A plan tier is a tier, not a licence
Plan tables frequently attach a commercial-use phrase to a paid tier. What that phrase means is defined, if anywhere, in the terms. The table is a pointer to the clause and not a substitute for it.
The practical consequence is that changing plan can change what is permitted, and that the answer for a free tier and a paid tier of the same product are two separate entries rather than one with a footnote.
4Watch for the word that narrows everything
Words like internal, personal, non-commercial, editorial, evaluation and preview each shrink the permission around them, often in a sentence that otherwise reads as a grant. They are easy to skim past because the sentence sounds permissive.
When one appears, the useful question is what it excludes rather than what it allows. A grant for internal use answers nothing about a campaign, and it is a complete answer to whether the material can be published.
5Marking and licence are separate lines
Whether output carries a visible mark, and whether it may be used commercially, are two separate questions that vendors often place near each other. A plan can permit commercial use and still deliver a marked file, and removing a mark can be a separate paid step.
Reading them as one line produces a plan that is cleared but unusable, or usable but not cleared. Both appear in practice and both are avoidable by reading the two sentences separately.
6Dates, screenshots and the version you relied on
Terms change without announcement. What matters later is what the page said on the day the work was produced, which is knowable only if somebody recorded it. A dated copy of the paragraph, kept with the project, is a minute of work.
Every row in this register carries its source page and a check date, which is the same habit at a different scale. A quotation nobody dated is a memory rather than a record.
7What a terms page will usually not tell you
Whether the material fed in was yours to feed in. Whether a recognisable person or a trademark appears in the output. What the platform you publish on requires. These sit outside the vendor's terms and are not answered by them.
A vendor answering yes to commercial use has answered one question of several. Treating it as the whole clearance is how a cleared deliverable still fails at the point it is published.
8What this page does not do
Nothing above interprets anyone's terms or says what a particular plan permits. It describes where the sentences tend to live and the order in which reading them tends to produce fewer surprises.
The register holds each vendor's own wording with its source and date. Whether that wording covers a given piece of work is a commercial judgement, and one that normally wants advice.
9Where the vendor statements are kept
The mechanics above apply to anyone. What a given vendor has committed to in writing is held on the register instead, each line with the plan page it came from and the date it was checked.
- The rights register — the wording each vendor publishes, with its source
An explainer, not an entry in the register. Vendor statements are held, with their sources, on commercial use, and nothing on this page is legal advice. Related: Clearing a deliverable, Licence vs ownership.
10What the output is for
Alongside the terms behind “Reading terms”, SceneMixer's guides describe the work itself this way:
The terms grant you the output to the extent the law allows, and that includes commercial use.
SceneMixer, What You Get to Keep — “Do I own the copyright in what I generate?” (read 2026-10-13)
On a segment’s storyboard card, next to Edit, press AI edit.
SceneMixer, AI Edit: Rewrite a Storyboard Segment by Saying What to Change (read 2026-10-13)