The short answer
Clearing footage for AI training comes down to four checks: strip or confirm any commercial music, know what consent you hold for identifiable people (and whether it mentions AI), note private locations and marks in frame, and read the contracts the footage was shot under. Footage you shot yourself, on your own project, with natural sound, is the easiest to license.
On this page
Most footage libraries are not blocked by quality. They are blocked by paperwork: a music bed nobody can license on, a release that only mentions broadcast, or a client contract that gives the rushes away. This post walks through the four checks a buyer will raise, in the order they usually come up.
Treat what follows as background reading. A lawyer working for you, not the buyer, should go through any license before signature.
Do I own the footage, or just the files?
Owning a drive full of camera originals is not the same as owning the copyright. Three common situations:
- You shot it for yourself. A creator filming their own channel, or a company filming its own operations, usually owns what it recorded.
- You shot it for a client. Many production agreements assign the copyright in the finished work, and sometimes the rushes, to the client. Others let you keep the rushes but restrict reuse. Read the clause.
- You licensed it in. Stock clips, archive inserts and user submissions are licensed to you for a purpose. You almost never have the right to license them on.
If investors, a former business partner or an acquirer hold rights in the library after a sale or wind-down, they need to agree too.
What do I do about music?
Assume a music license does not cover AI training unless it says so in writing. Synchronization licenses and production music subscriptions are usually written for publishing your video in named media, not for handing the recording to a technology company.
The practical answer is to deliver footage without the music. If you kept separate audio stems, that is easy. If the music is mixed into a single track, you may need to deliver mute video, which some buyers accept and some do not.
| Audio in the footage | Usual approach |
|---|---|
| Natural sound you recorded | Generally yours to license; note any background music |
| Commercial track in the edit | Remove, or deliver mute |
| Production music library | Check the license; usually remove |
| Interviews and dialogue | Treat as people on camera (consent needed) |
What consent do I need for people on camera?
This is the question buyers ask most carefully. For anyone identifiable (an interviewee, a presenter, a featured person in a scene) a buyer will want to know what consent you hold and what it covers.
Look at your existing releases for three things:
- Does the release cover any use, or only named media (broadcast, online, advertising)?
- Does it mention machine learning, AI training, or “all media now known or later developed”?
- Can you find a signed copy for each person?
Background people in public places are usually treated differently from featured people, but each buyer sets its own rule. Some companies that license footage say they only accept likeness with explicit, dated consent. Our video buyers comparison lists what each company publishes.
Faces, voices and biometric laws
In the United States, a few states regulate biometric data directly. Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act covers a scan of face geometry and a voiceprint, and requires a written release before they are collected. Texas and Washington have their own biometric statutes. Footage on its own is not automatically biometric data, but a buyer that extracts face geometry or voiceprints from it may be collecting it. Expect questions about where footage was shot and who appears in it.
If you want to remove the issue, blurring faces and stripping dialogue help, but they also reduce value for some uses.
What about locations, logos and other things in frame?
Private property is usually filmed under a location agreement. Check whether it limits the footage to one production. Beyond that, note anything identifiable in frame:
- trademarks and branded products in close-up;
- artwork, murals and distinctive building designs;
- screens showing other people’s content (televisions, phones, billboards);
- license plates and house numbers.
These rarely stop a deal on their own, but a buyer may ask you to leave out or mask certain clips.
How do I put this together for a buyer?
Write a one-page rights summary for the library. It saves weeks later.
- What you own outright, and what is commissioned, co-owned or licensed in.
- Which reels contain commercial music, and whether stems exist.
- Which reels contain identifiable people, and what releases you hold.
- Any past license of the footage, especially an exclusive one.
The buyer, not us, will review the footage itself under its own process. We only need the summary on our form, and we never receive footage or samples.
Where does this leave a typical library?
For most creators, a large share of unused B-roll is clean: shot on their own projects, with natural sound and no featured people. For production companies and broadcasters, the clean share is often smaller, and the work is in the contracts. Either way, knowing which share is clean is what lets a buyer say yes.
When the paperwork is sorted, our guide to how to sell video data to AI shows which buyers publish terms you can compare.
Clear the rights once, carefully, and every later conversation about the library gets shorter.