Video licences explained

Every clip Video Assets Server returns carries a licence, a verdict that answers “can this go into a commercial video?”, and an editorial flag when people, insignia or brands appear without releases. This page explains the licences you will meet, how the verdict is decided, and what to do with each. It is practical guidance, not legal advice.

“Commercial video” here means anything that earns money or promotes something: an ad, a sponsored or monetised video, a client project, a product demo, a paid course.

The verdicts

Verdict	API value	What you can do
Commercial use OK	yes	Use it in any video, including ads and client work. No credit needed.
Commercial use OK with credit	yes-with-credit	Same, as long as you credit the source with the attribution line.
Restricted: read the conditions	restricted	Allowed only under conditions that rule out most projects (share-alike).
Needs a paid licence or releases	clearance-required	Paid stock: license it per use or by subscription before publishing.
Unclear: check the terms	check-terms	Nobody verified the licence, or a third party may own the footage.
Non-commercial only	no	Study and personal projects only.

The Commercial-safe switch (commercial=true in the API, commercial_only in MCP, on by default for agents) keeps only the first two.

The editorial flag

A licence covers the copyright in the footage. It does not cover the people in it, the brands and logos in frame, or an organisation’s insignia. When those appear without model or property releases, footage is fine for editorial use (news, documentary, education, commentary) but not for advertising, product promotion or anything that implies endorsement.

license.editorial: true marks such clips. It is set for all NASA footage (NASA forbids implying endorsement and using its insignia, and asks for permission before identifiable astronauts or staff appear in ads) and for historic and archive footage, which shows people and brands who never signed a release. A clip can be yes-with-credit and editorial at the same time: use it freely in a documentary, but keep it out of an ad.

Licences you will meet

Public domain and CC0

Public domain footage has no copyright owner: the copyright expired, was never claimed, or the work was made by a US federal agency, whose works are not copyrighted in the US. CC0 is a creator’s dedication of their work to the public domain. Both are yes: use, edit and publish freely, no credit required. Crediting the source is still good practice, and publicity, trademark and privacy rights can still apply to what is in frame.

NASA media

NASA’s images and video are generally not copyrighted in the US. NASA asks you to credit it, not to use the NASA insignia or logotype, not to imply endorsement, and to get permission before using identifiable astronauts or staff in advertising. NASA clips are therefore yes-with-credit and editorial. Some NASA-hosted footage belongs to a partner (a launch company, a university, another agency) named in the credit line; those clips are check-terms. NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio visualisations show data, not people, so they are not flagged editorial. NASA’s media usage guidelines.

CC BY (Attribution)

Use it for anything, including commercial work, if you credit it: title, author, source and licence, with links, and a note that you edited it. The attribution field and ATTRIBUTION.md give you that line. Verdict yes-with-credit. How to credit CC BY video.

CC BY-SA (ShareAlike)

Like CC BY, but a video that includes the clip must itself be released under CC BY-SA. That works for a Wikipedia explainer, not for a client ad or a broadcast. Verdict restricted.

CC BY-NC and CC BY-ND

NC (NonCommercial) rules out commercial use. ND (NoDerivatives) forbids sharing adapted versions, and trimming, cropping or grading a clip inside your own edit generally counts as adapting it. Both get no. Open archives rarely carry them because this server only searches the Internet Archive for CC0, public-domain and CC BY(-SA) items.

Uploader-asserted licences

On the Internet Archive anyone can upload a film and pick its licence, and the Archive does not check that choice. Some modern films carry a public-domain mark they should not. These licences are recorded with assertedBy: "uploader" and capped at check-terms. The Prelinger Archives are the exception: the collection’s own curators state that its films are public domain. Public-domain archive films.

Free stock site licences (Pexels, Pixabay, Coverr, Mixkit)

These sites use their own licences: free commercial use without credit, but no reselling or redistributing the clips as they are, and rules about identifiable people. They are linked, not searched, so open the clip on the site and read its licence there.

Paid stock (Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, Getty Images, Storyblocks, Pond5…)

Footage you license per clip or by subscription. Linked searches show where to look; the purchase and the licence happen on their site. Verdict clearance-required.

How a verdict is decided

1. Read the licence the source states for that clip (Wikimedia Commons and NASA record it per file; the Internet Archive per item).
2. Map it to a known licence: CC0, public domain, CC BY / BY-SA / BY-NC / BY-ND in any version, NASA media, US government work, or the site’s own licence.
3. Apply one table for every source: CC0 and public domain → yes; CC BY and NASA → yes-with-credit; SA → restricted; NC or ND → no; paid → clearance-required; nothing stated → check-terms.
4. Cap unverified claims: a licence asserted by an anonymous uploader is never better than check-terms.
5. Flag editorial footage: NASA media and historic footage get editorial: true.

Each license object carries id (SPDX where one exists), name, url, attributionRequired, shareAlike, redistribution, editorial, assertedBy, verdict and a one-line note.

Before you publish

• Keep the credit lines: GET /v1/clips/{id}/credits gives ATTRIBUTION.md, and the sequence builder writes one for the whole edit.
• Check the clip’s own page for anything unusual (a partner credit, a “courtesy of” line, a takedown notice).
• Keep editorial footage out of ads and endorsements, and get releases for recognisable people and private property you feature.
• Don’t re-upload the clips themselves as stock footage unless their licence allows it; free stock site licences such as Pexels’ and Pixabay’s forbid it.