Derivative works, and why the phrase turns up on both sides
A derivative work is something built on top of existing material. The phrase appears in grants, where it decides whether you may edit, and in licences back, where it decides whether the supplier may build on what you made. As of 2026-09-22.
| Question | What the phrase answers |
|---|---|
| In a grant to you | Whether editing, cutting and compositing are permitted |
| In a licence back | Whether the supplier may build on your material |
| In a weights licence | Often used for fine-tuned or adapted models |
| About a finished edit | Whose contribution the edit represents is a separate question |
Inclusion rule. Phrases that appear in more than one vendor's permissions documents and that change what a sentence means. A phrase used by a single vendor in a single clause is described on that vendor's own page instead. Order. Reading order: where you meet it, then what it settles, then what it does not.
1Editing is a permission, not an assumption
Anybody working with generated video edits it: trimming, grading, compositing, cutting to music. Whether that is inside a grant depends on whether the grant reaches derivative works, and most do.
Where a grant is silent, the practical risk is low and the drafting gap is real. It is the kind of thing a supplier confirms in one line when asked, and the line is worth having.
2The same phrase in a licence back reads very differently
A supplier permitted to create derivative works from your material may build on it rather than merely store and display it. For most services that is about thumbnails and format conversion; the wording rarely says so.
Under a confidentiality obligation this is the phrase to notice, because building on material is harder to reconcile with a promise of privacy than storing it is.
3In a model licence it means something else again
Weights licences use derivative works for adapted or fine-tuned models, which brings the licence's own conditions along with them. A tuned model can inherit a territory restriction or a threshold from the licence it was built under.
That inheritance is easy to forget once the artefact in hand is a checkpoint file rather than a download page. The condition travels with it whether or not anybody re-reads the licence.
4What the output is for
Alongside the terms behind “Derivative work”, SceneMixer's guides describe the work itself this way:
The spoken lines and the end card follow your interface language across fifteen dialogue languages, with the cast and setting adapted to that market. The end card falls back to a language it can typeset when a script needs shaping or right-to-left layout.
SceneMixer, AI Ad Video Generator — “Which languages can the ad be in?” (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)
5Where the sourced wording is
A word page, not an entry in the register: nothing above is attributed to any vendor and nothing above is legal advice. The quoted clauses are on commercial use, the column this phrase turns up in is what is owned, and the reading rules are on the reading page. Next words: Inputs and outputs, Watermark, Acceptable use.