Every creator selling on the AI fashion marketplace agrees to a commercial-use clause. Here is the plain-English breakdown of what that means, what rights you keep, and what brands are allowed to do with images derived from your set — written without the legalese.
What the publishing consent actually says
When you publish a photo set on Apiway, you confirm three things:
- You own or have rights to all the images in the set (including consent from anyone else visible in the frame).
- You consent to brands using the set as the human anchor in AI-generated images, and you consent to the AI-generated derivatives being used commercially by those brands.
- You set a price; you receive 80% of every generation; the platform takes 20% as a fee.
That is the entirety of the rights conversation for a basic marketplace listing. There is no exclusivity clause; you can publish the same images on Instagram, your own portfolio, or another platform. There is no perpetuity clause beyond what is needed for the brands who already used the set (more on this below).
What rights the brand gets per generation
Per generation: the brand receives a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual license to use the AI-generated output commercially. They can put it on PDPs, ads, lookbooks, emails, and social. They can edit and re-use the output as marketing content.
They do not receive your original photo set, only the AI-modified output. The original set stays yours.
What rights you keep
All of them, on the original photos. You can:
- Continue posting the same images on Instagram or elsewhere.
- List the set on other platforms (Apiway is non-exclusive).
- Use the images in your own portfolio.
- Unpublish the set from the marketplace at any time.
What happens when you unpublish a set
Unpublishing stops new generations from using the set immediately. The marketplace listing becomes invisible to new brand users.
Generations that already happened remain valid. The brand that bought 50 ad creatives last month can keep using those creatives commercially — their license is locked at the moment of generation, not at the moment the listing is live. This protects brands from a creator pulling a set after they have built campaign assets on it.
Other people in the frame
If your photo set includes other identifiable people (a stylist, a friend, a fellow model), you confirm at upload that you have their consent for the same commercial-use flow. The platform does not separately verify this; it is on you to have the conversation and (ideally) keep the signed consent in your own records.
If you cannot get consent from someone in a frame, exclude that frame from the set or crop it out before upload.
Co-author rights and revenue split
For sets produced by a team — up to 5 co-authors per set — each co-author has signed off on the same consent flow. Each co-author has a credit share defined at upload (minimum 1 credit per share, totaling the per-generation price). Each generation pays the share to each co-author.
A set with 4 co-authors at equal split, priced 12 credits per generation, sends 3 credits to each co-author per generation, minus the platform fee.
What brands cannot do
Even with the commercial-use license, brands cannot:
- Use your original photo set images directly. They only have rights to the AI-modified derivative output.
- Imply your endorsement of their brand. The marketplace flow is structured as “the creator was the human anchor”, not “the creator endorses this brand”.
- Re-license or sell your photos as stock to a third party.
- Use the output in defamatory, illegal, or policy-violating ways.
Payout conversion
Earned credits convert 1:1 to US dollars at one credit per cent. The conversion is fixed. When you want to withdraw, hit “Withdraw money” in the Earnings tab and email the team your preferred payout method (PayPal or bank). Earnings credits are separate from any plan credits you also have.
Read the consent flow before listing
The first time you list a set, the platform shows the publishing consent in full. Read it carefully — the commercial-use clause is the most important part. Open a free account and walk through the flow before you upload anything.