Midjourney Terms of Service Commercial Use 2026: Full Rights Guide

I've been creating product mockups and marketing materials using Midjourney. A client wants to buy some of these designs for their actual product packaging.

Do I actually own the copyright to images I generate in Midjourney? Can I sell them commercially? What if someone else used the same prompt and got a similar image?

The TOS is confusing and I don't want to get sued or have my client get sued later.

Quick question - does this apply if I'm using Midjourney images for my YouTube thumbnails? I'm a gaming channel with about 50k subs and starting to get some sponsorship offers. Do I need the corporate plan?

My annual revenue is nowhere near $1M but the sponsorships are technically commercial use right?

@Chris_D_2 raises a fair point. Let me clarify the legal standard here:

Under 17 U.S.C. Section 103, a derivative work only gets copyright protection for the "material contributed by the author" - meaning only your original additions are protected, not the underlying AI-generated material.

The bar for "sufficient human authorship" hasn't been clearly defined by courts yet for AI-assisted works. The Copyright Office has indicated that:

• Selection and arrangement CAN be copyrightable (choosing which outputs to use, how to combine them)
• Mechanical changes (filters, basic color adjustment) likely aren't enough
• Creative modifications (painting over portions, adding original elements, significant compositing) have a stronger claim

The honest answer is: we won't know exactly where the line is until we get more court decisions. Being conservative is wise.

Wanted to share some resources/tools I've found helpful for anyone doing this commercially:

For upscaling (essential for print):

• Topaz Gigapixel AI - best quality, $99 one-time
• Magnific.ai - amazing for adding detail, subscription based
• MJ's built-in upscaler has improved a lot in v6 but still not print-ready for large formats

For record keeping:

• Notion template for tracking prompts/generations
• Google Drive with dated folders (free and automatic timestamps)
• Screenshot your MJ generations in Discord - includes timestamps

For contracts:

• Hello Bonsai has good freelance contract templates
• Docracy has free creative services agreements
• The AIGA design contract is solid but needs AI clauses added

For insurance:

• Hiscox - popular for creatives
• Next Insurance - good for small business
• Make sure policy doesn't exclude "AI-generated content" - some do now

@your_honor_please_9 - Fair question. The honest answer is that there's no bright line yet. But here's my framework based on Copyright Office guidance and general copyright principles:

Probably NOT substantial:

• Color adjustment/filters (mechanical, no creativity)
• Cropping/resizing (no new creative elements)
• Simple text overlays (minimal creativity)

Getting warmer:

• Combining multiple AI images thoughtfully (selection/arrangement)
• Adding original graphic elements you created
• Significant compositing with stock/original photos

Likely substantial:

• Painting over significant portions (adding human artistic expression)
• Using AI as rough base, then essentially re-creating in your style
• Complex compositions where AI is one element among many original elements

The question to ask yourself: "Could a reasonable person look at this and recognize significant human creative expression beyond what the AI produced?" If yes, you're probably fine. If it's basically the AI image with minor tweaks, you're in the gray zone.

@jurys_out_15 - This is exactly what we do at my agency. It's probably the lowest-risk commercial use case actually.

Why it's relatively safe:

• Marketing materials aren't being "sold" - they're part of a service
• Images are typically used in context (with text, branding, other elements)
• Low incentive for anyone to copy website hero images
• Easy to replace later if needed

What I recommend:

• Disclose to clients that you use AI in your workflow
• Modify images - at minimum composite with their branding elements
• Include clause in your contract about AI-assisted design
• Keep records in case questions come up later

Been doing this for 2 years, dozens of clients, zero issues. It's honestly transformed my business - I can offer custom imagery at a fraction of what photoshoots or stock licenses would cost.

Great to see this thread still helping people! Since we're in 2024 now, here's my legal update:

What's settled:

• Pure AI output = no copyright (Thaler still controlling)
• Human modifications can enable partial copyright
• Disclosure requirements are expanding globally
• Midjourney TOS commercial rights still valid for paid users under $1M

What's still pending:

• Getty v. Stability AI - could reshape training data liability
• Several Congressional bills on AI copyright
• State-level regulations continuing to develop

Best practices remain unchanged:

1. Use paid plans for commercial work
2. Add substantial human creativity
3. Document your process
4. Disclose AI use to clients and in ToS
5. Avoid prompts referencing protected IP

The sky hasn't fallen. Responsible AI art commerce is viable and growing. Keep following best practices and you'll be positioned well regardless of how the law evolves.

For comprehensive guidance, our AI Commercial Use FAQ is kept updated with the latest developments.

Question that I haven't seen answered cleanly: the $1M rule is based on the whole company's gross revenue, not just the revenue from the AI art, right? I work for a marketing agency that clears way more than $1M total but the design budget is tiny.

If that's the case it sounds like a lot of agencies are technically supposed to be on the Corporate plan even though the art is a rounding error in their books. Just want to make sure I'm reading it correctly before I flag it to my boss.

@mark_d_92 that's how I've always read the terms too. It keys off your company's total gross revenue, not the slice tied to the images. So a big company using it for one small project still needs the higher tier. Cheap insurance for them honestly given the plan cost versus their legal exposure.

Not a lawyer, just someone who read it three times because my agency had the same question.

Worth separating two different things that this thread keeps blending together, because they trip people up constantly.

One is your license to USE the images, which comes from the Midjourney terms and depends on your subscription tier. The other is whether you OWN a copyright you can enforce against copycats, which is a question of U.S. copyright law and human authorship. You can absolutely have the first without the second. A paid plan lets you sell the print, but if the image is essentially raw AI output, you may not have a registrable copyright to stop someone else from reusing it.

This is general information and not legal advice, and the law here is genuinely unsettled, but keeping those two buckets separate will save you a lot of confusion.

Reporting back on the Amazon Merch question from earlier. I tried uploading a few designs that were pretty obviously AI and they got rejected during review. Reworked them with a lot of hand editing, retyping text, fixing the usual AI hand and texture weirdness, and the cleaned-up versions sailed through.

My takeaway is that Amazon isn't really policing whether you have rights, they're policing whether it LOOKS like generic AI output. The more you make it your own the fewer problems you'll have at the gate.

The point upthread about disclosing AI use in your client contract is the single best advice in here. I started adding one short clause that says some assets were created with AI tools and that the client accepts that, and it has killed every awkward conversation before it could start.

Had a client last year ask for a refund months later claiming they didn't know. The clause shut it down immediately. Doesn't matter how good your art is if the paperwork leaves you exposed.

Does anyone know what happens to your commercial rights if you cancel your Midjourney subscription after generating the images? Like if I make a bunch of stuff on a paid plan this month, then downgrade or cancel, can I still sell what I already made?

I keep going back and forth on whether to keep paying year round or just subscribe in bursts when I have client work.

@RJ_Brooklyn my understanding has always been that the rights attach to images generated while you were a paying subscriber, and canceling later doesn't claw back what you already made. But the terms can change and there have historically been carve-outs around the revenue threshold, so I wouldn't bet a client deliverable on my memory of it.

Honestly if you have active client work the subscription cost is trivial compared to the headache of trying to argue this later. I just keep mine running.

Friendly reminder for everyone landing here from search: Midjourney has revised its terms more than once, and the exact wording on commercial rights, the revenue threshold, and the Corporate plan has shifted between versions. The summary at the top of this thread is a starting point, not a substitute for reading the current terms before you ship anything.

Great discussion in here though. Please keep the specifics tied to dates and plan versions so future readers know what era you're describing.

Anyone here actually minted Midjourney work as NFTs and run into issues? I keep seeing the copyright-ownership problem framed as theoretical but it feels very real for NFTs where the whole pitch is owning a unique asset.

If the underlying image may not even be copyrightable, what exactly is the buyer getting? Genuinely asking, not trying to start a fight.

@nft_curious_dan in general an NFT is a token pointing at a file, and minting it doesn't automatically transfer any copyright. People conflate the two all the time. So you can sell the token while the copyright question stays exactly as murky as it was. Buyer gets the token and whatever license you spell out, not necessarily an enforceable copyright.

This is just my layperson understanding from getting burned once. Put the actual rights you're granting in writing on the listing, because the token alone doesn't say much.

For the record-keeping crowd: I started exporting my full prompt history and saving the dated generation grids, plus a short note on what I changed in Photoshop for each final. Took an afternoon to set up a template and now it's automatic.

If a dispute ever comes up I want to be able to show the creative decisions I made, not just hand over a raw output. Whether or not it ever matters legally, it makes me feel a lot less exposed when I send something to a client.

A few people have asked whether registering a copyright is even worth it for this kind of work. General points, not legal advice, and this varies by your facts and jurisdiction.

The Copyright Office has been clear that purely AI-generated material isn't registrable, but a work that combines AI elements with meaningful human authorship can be, and the practice is to disclaim the AI-generated portions and claim the human contribution. So your registration protects your selection, arrangement, and original additions, not the raw generation. That's a narrower right than a lot of people assume, but for genuinely modified work it's not nothing.

If you're doing this at any real volume or for clients, it's worth a short conversation with an attorney about how to document authorship and what's actually worth registering, because the answer really does depend on how much of you is in the final piece.

Well, the thing this thread warned about happened to me. I sell shirts with Midjourney designs (paid plan, all above board on the license side). A bigger shop copied my two best sellers almost pixel for pixel and undercut me. Filed takedowns with the marketplace and they came back with "unable to verify your rights in this work."

So what do people in my spot actually DO? Just eat it?

@tshirt_tycoon_dan yeah, you're living the exact gotcha from earlier in this thread: the license lets you USE the image, but a raw AI image is hard to claim copyright in, so takedown systems that ask "do you own this" stall out. It stings but it's the known tradeoff of building products on raw generations.

OP of this thread checking in. Question for the lawyers here since it affects my planning too: if I take the AI image and do real work on top, my own typography, color grading, composited elements, does THAT version become something I can enforce? Or is it tainted forever because the base was generated?

@grace_h_3 general info, not legal advice. It's not tainted forever. The human-authored additions, your typography, arrangement, edits, original elements, can support protection in what YOU added, even where the underlying generation itself isn't protectable. Practically that means a copycat who lifts your finished composite is taking your protected contribution, which puts real teeth back into a takedown, while someone who only reuses the raw base image is much harder to reach.

For @tshirt_tycoon_dan, two angles worth thinking about even now: rework your best sellers into versions with clear human authorship going forward and keep layered files as evidence, and don't ignore the brand side. Your shop name and logo are enforceable through trademark completely independent of the AI question, and marketplaces respond to brand-based complaints when a copycat is trading on your listings. For designs where real money is at stake, a consult on protection strategy before you scale is cheaper than fighting after the copy shows up.

That reframe helps. Plan: reworking the top designs with my own type and layered edits this week, filing for the shop name trademark I kept putting off, and from now on nothing goes live as a raw generation. The copycat taught me a $2k lesson, could have been worse.