Four free AI 3D tools grant four different sets of output rights

The picture

Four AI 3D-generation tools state four distinct free-tier output terms, all retrieved 16 September 2026. Meshy's pricing page states free users receive "a CC BY 4.0 license" and asks that commercial resellers "credit Meshy" in their listing. Tripo's own terms of service state that for "Users Free of Charge," Tripo itself "retains all rights" to use, license and commercially exploit outputs those users generate - a materially different arrangement from a share-alike grant to the user. Luma's terms of service state a customer can only use outputs commercially "if the Outputs were produced during an active Subscription Term" under a paid plan. Microsoft's TRELLIS.2 repository carries an MIT licence badge, with no revenue or attribution condition at all.

What the documents show

These are four vendors' own primary legal documents, not a secondary summary, and they do not describe one category of "free AI 3D." Meshy's free tier grants the user broad rights conditioned on attribution. Tripo's free tier does the near opposite on its face: the company, not the user, is described as retaining the exploitation rights, though the clause does not itself state the free user is barred from using their own downloaded model - only that Tripo's own rights are broad and unwaived. Luma ties commercial use to an active paid subscription rather than to the output itself. TRELLIS.2 imposes no such condition. A studio reading only one of these terms and assuming it applies to the others would be wrong about at least two of the remaining three.

What it is allowed to decide

A licence term decides Provenance directly: it determines whether a generated prop can be traced to a rights basis a client's legal team can rely on. Meshy's CC BY grant and TRELLIS.2's MIT licence both hold Provenance for free-tier use, with different conditions attached. Tripo's and Luma's free-tier terms do not hold clean Provenance for unrestricted commercial use, since one retains company-side rights and the other withholds commercial use entirely absent a paid plan. None of the four terms establishes anything about Dimensional or Physical authority; a licence says nothing about whether the generated geometry is to scale or behaves correctly.

The disclosure label

A client deliverable containing an AI-generated prop, disclosed as of 16 September 2026, should name the specific tool, its specific tier at generation time, and the exact licence clause relied on - not a general claim that the source was "free AI 3D." A previs supervisor or asset-sourcing lead would be the plausible party asserting that disclosure.

• Was this asset generated on a free or paid tier, and does that change which licence clause actually applies?
• If Tripo was used, does the studio's use of its own output conflict with the company's retained rights in any way?
• Has the specific tool's current terms page been checked, rather than assumed from another AI 3D tool's terms?

Visual quality alone hides all four of these outcomes equally well; only reading each tool's own terms, at the tier actually used, separates a clean asset from a disclosed one.