This policy explains who may use the images you generate with Scalable, for what purposes, and what we can and cannot promise about those images. It is the plain-language companion to our Terms of Service. The binding legal grants are set out below and are incorporated into the Terms of Service by reference; where this policy and the Terms of Service conflict, the Terms of Service govern.
This policy is a contractual document, not legal advice. If you need certainty for a specific commercial use, consult your own legal counsel.
1. The reality: most pure AI images are not protected by copyright
Scalable creates images by sending your prompts and any reference material to paid third-party artificial-intelligence services (including Google, OpenAI, and others). It is important that you understand the legal status of what comes back.
Under current German and US law, an image generated purely by an AI system from prompts, without meaningful human creative shaping of the visible result, is generally not protected by copyright:
- Germany / EU. Copyright protection requires a persönliche geistige Schöpfung — a personal intellectual creation by a human author (§ 2(2) German Copyright Act, Urheberrechtsgesetz / UrhG). An autonomous system has no human personality and cannot meet this requirement.
- United States. Copyright protects only the product of human authorship. Output produced by a machine in response to prompts, without human creative control over the expression, is not registrable.
Where protection can arise. If a human contributes genuine creative shaping — substantial editing, compositing, or the creative selection and arrangement of elements — that human contribution may attract limited protection. Protection extends only to the human layer, never to the underlying AI-generated image itself.
What this means for you. For many images you generate, there may be no copyright for anyone to own. This is not unique to Scalable; it follows directly from the law and applies to all AI image tools. The rights you receive from us, described below, are designed to give you practical freedom to use your images, within the limits the law actually allows.
2. Your rights on a paid plan
If you generate an image while on an active paid plan, then to the fullest extent permitted by law, we grant you the following in respect of that image:
(a) A commercial usage right (licence). A worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual usage right (Nutzungsrecht, § 31 UrhG — the consideration for which is included in your subscription) to use the generated image for any lawful purpose, including commercial purposes. This right expressly includes reproduction, distribution, modification and adaptation, and public communication and display of the image.
(b) An assignment of transferable rights, if any. We assign to you any rights in the image that we hold and that are capable of transfer, to the extent assignable and only if and to the extent such rights exist. Because many outputs are not protected by copyright (Section 1), and because German copyright itself cannot be transferred between living persons (§ 29 UrhG), this assignment may transfer little or nothing. It is included so that, in the borderline cases where transferable rights do exist, they pass to you.
(c) A covenant not to assert rights against you. We promise not to assert against your lawful use of the image any rights we may hold in it. In practice, for images that are not protected by copyright, this covenant — together with the licence in (a) — is what gives you real freedom to use the image.
Why the licence is non-exclusive
We grant a non-exclusive right deliberately, and we cannot offer exclusivity:
- Exclusivity would be illusory. If an image is not protected by copyright, no one — not you and not us — can stop third parties from copying it. We will not promise an exclusivity we cannot deliver.
- The law would unwind it anyway. Under § 40a UrhG, an exclusive licence granted for a lump sum (rather than ongoing royalties) is treated as non-exclusive after ten years by operation of law. A "lifetime exclusive" promise would silently convert. Granting a non-exclusive right from the outset avoids this trap and keeps your rights stable.
This does not limit your use. A non-exclusive right still lets you use, sell, advertise, and adapt your images commercially without restriction from us.
3. Your rights on a free plan
If you generate an image while on a free plan, you receive a usage right (Nutzungsrecht, § 31 UrhG) for personal, non-commercial use only.
No commercial usage right is granted on a free plan. In particular, free-plan images may not be used:
- in advertising, marketing, or promotional material;
- in product listings, sales pages, or any e-commerce context;
- in client or commissioned work;
- in any other revenue-generating or business context.
To use an image commercially, you must be on a paid plan when the image is generated. Upgrading later does not retroactively convert previously generated free-plan images. If you need commercial rights for an image you created on a free plan, re-generate it on a paid plan.
4. We can grant only what we receive (pass-through limit)
Scalable cannot grant you more than it receives from the upstream AI providers whose services produce your images.
Those upstream providers grant or pass through output rights to their API customers "to the extent permitted by law" and "if any," under terms that vary by provider. Scalable is such a customer, and passes those rights through to you. The rights you receive under this policy are therefore bounded by, and no broader than, the rights granted to us by the relevant upstream provider for the service used to generate your image. We make no warranty beyond what we ourselves receive.
5. What can actually be enforced (honest section)
We want you to understand what is — and is not — enforceable, so your expectations are accurate.
Because many raw outputs are not protected by copyright, our remedies are mostly contractual, not copyright-based. Specifically:
| Lever | What it does |
|---|---|
| Contract (this policy + Terms of Service) | Binds users. We can act on breaches by users — for example, free-plan commercial use, or any prohibited use. |
| Trademark law | Protects logos and brand marks used in commerce. The strongest route for protecting a generated logo is to register it as a trademark. Trademark does not require human authorship. |
| Unfair competition (German UWG) | May apply, narrowly, to unfair imitation or misappropriation by competitors. |
What we generally cannot do is sue a stranger for copyright infringement of a raw AI image, because there is usually no copyright in it. The same is true for you: third parties not bound by a contract may be free to copy an unprotected image. To strengthen your position, add meaningful human editing or arrangement, or — for logos — pursue trademark registration.
Enforcement against you. Using free-plan images commercially, or making any other prohibited use, is a breach of contract that we will act on. Remedies include suspension or termination of your account and claims for damages where available in law. We do not need copyright in the image to enforce these contractual terms against you.
6. Reference and input images are your responsibility
When you upload reference images, photos, logos, or other material to Scalable, you are responsible for the rights in that material. You represent and warrant that:
- you own, or are properly licensed to use, every image you upload; and
- you have all rights and consents necessary to use it, including the consent of any identifiable person depicted (relevant under data-protection law and § 22 of the German Kunsturhebergesetz, the Act on the Protection of Personal Likenesses).
You must not upload material that infringes any third party's copyright, trademark, or personality/likeness rights, and you must not upload third-party copyrighted works, trademarks, or images of identifiable persons without authorization.
Indemnity. You will indemnify and hold Scalable harmless against any claims, losses, and costs arising from material you upload or from outputs derived from it. Where an output is derived from infringing input you provided, that output and any use of it are your responsibility.
7. No IP indemnity for outputs (provided "as is")
Generated images are provided "as is." Scalable does not indemnify you against third-party intellectual-property claims arising from your use of generated images, and gives no warranty that any output is free of third-party rights. You bear the risk of how you deploy and use your images.
(Enterprise customers may negotiate scoped, separately agreed terms; any such terms apply only if expressly agreed in writing.)
8. AI-generation markers and the EU AI Act
From 2 August 2026, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (Article 50) requires AI-generated content to carry machine-readable markers identifying it as artificially generated, and requires certain synthetic media to be labelled.
Accordingly:
- Generated images may carry machine-readable provenance or AI-generation markers (for example, an embedded watermark). You must not remove, alter, or obscure these markers.
- Where the law requires it, you must label deepfakes and other synthetic media as artificially generated — in particular content that realistically depicts real persons or events.
Compliance with these labelling duties for your published content is your responsibility.
9. FAQ
Do I own my images? On a paid plan, you receive a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual commercial usage right, an assignment of any transferable rights that exist, and our promise not to assert rights against your use. For most AI images there is no copyright for anyone to "own," so the practical answer is: you are free to use them commercially without restriction from us, but you do not get exclusive ownership the law cannot create.
Can I use free-plan images commercially? No. Free-plan images are for personal, non-commercial use only. Commercial use — including any advertising, sales listing, client work, or revenue-generating use — requires generating the image on a paid plan. Upgrading later does not convert images you already made on the free plan.
Can I trademark a generated logo? Yes — trademark protection does not require human authorship, so a generated logo used in commerce can be registered and enforced as a trademark. For any logo that matters to your business, trademark registration is the strongest protection, stronger than relying on copyright in the image.
What if someone copies my generated image? If the image is not protected by copyright (as many AI images are not), you generally cannot stop a third party from copying it, just as no one can stop you. Your stronger options are: register a logo as a trademark; add meaningful human editing or arrangement so that a protectable human layer exists; or rely on unfair-competition law in the narrow cases where it applies. We can act on contract breaches by users, but not on copyright in a raw output.
10. Changes and contact
We may update this policy as the law and our services evolve; the date shown in the page header reflects the current version. Questions: legal@scalable.so.
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