What Is a Commercial License?

What does a commercial license actually grant?

Three rights, in plain order: the right to reproduce the work (make copies), the right to distribute it (sell or give those copies through stores), and the right to keep the proceeds. Personal-use licenses grant the first for yourself only; commercial licenses add the market. Without one, selling the work is infringement no matter who made it.

Licenses also draw boundaries: some cap the number of copies, forbid resale on certain platforms, or exclude trademarks and third-party assets bundled inside. The headline 'commercial use allowed' always deserves a second paragraph of reading. What exactly is covered, for how long, and are there earnings caps or seat limits?

For AI-made books a fourth question joins: who owns the output at all? Copyright offices are still drawing these lines, which is why a written license from your tool matters more than theory. A service’s commercial license does not remove third-party rights or guarantee copyright protection. Read the grant and AI-output limits in its terms.

What does EarnDraft's commercial license cover?

An active EarnDraft monthly subscription includes commercial usage rights under our Terms for the books you create: chapters, cover, and exported files in PDF, EPUB, and DOCX. Sell them on Amazon KDP, Etsy, Gumroad, or your own site; price them freely; keep your retail earnings, subject to store fees. Our Terms describe the perpetual grant and AI-output limits; Purchased usage requires an active monthly subscription.

A limited AI trial lets you try an idea and edit the result. One credit per message includes small edits. Larger rewrites and generated images have an additional price shown before approval. Manual editing, uploads, undo and downloads are free. Publishing requires an account. Additional usage purchases do not activate a monthly subscription. The commercial grant and AI-output limits are set out in the Terms.

Your duties under the license are the ordinary ones: answer KDP's AI questions honestly at publishing, don't resell someone else's manuscript as your own, and confirm any third-party material you paste into the editor is yours to use. The tool licenses what it makes; what you add stays your responsibility.

What should you check in any tool's license?

Start with the commercial-use line itself: is selling explicitly allowed, or merely not forbidden? Silence is not permission. Look for the words commercial, sell, distribute, and keep — and note whether rights attach to a tier (paid only) or to outputs regardless of plan.

Then check the carve-outs. Some tools license text but not generated images, or cap commercial use at a revenue threshold that a hit book crosses fast. Others claim a share of earnings or a credit line on the cover. None of these are deal-breakers in isolation, but each must be priced into your decision before the book earns its first dollar.

Finally, check survivability: if you cancel, do finished books stay licensed? And check transferability: can you sell the rights themselves, or only copies? A license that evaporates on cancellation is a rental, whatever the marketing page calls it.

An example: drafting, exporting and commercial use

A consultant tries an idea for a lead magnet with EarnDraft's limited AI trial. She reviews and edits the draft, then exports saved content without spending AI allowance. Before selling AI-generated work, she reviews the commercial grant and AI-output limits in the Terms. A monthly subscription supplies further AI capacity and the commercial rights described there; export access is a separate question.

A year later she cancels her subscription. Saved content remains available for manual editing and export. The perpetual grant already obtained under the Terms remains; further subscriber AI work pauses. Cancellation does not turn exported files into rented files or guarantee copyright protection for AI output.

What licensing mistakes trap authors?

The big one is assuming creation equals ownership. Paying a ghostwriter, prompting a free tool, or buying a cover template each creates a different rights situation — work-for-hire terms, tier-limited licenses, and stock-image restrictions respectively. Every contributor and tool in the pipeline needs its own rights answer before launch, not after a takedown notice.

The second is mixing unlicensed inputs into licensed outputs. A licensed manuscript with three pasted stock photos on a personal-use license is one complaint away from delisting. Audit every asset — fonts, images, quotes beyond fair use, bonus templates — with the same care as the manuscript license.

The third is confusing platform permission with copyright. KDP accepting your upload means the file passed their checks, not that you own every pixel. Stores enforce their policies; courts enforce ownership. The license folder described above is what bridges the two when it matters.

• Review the commercial grant and AI-output limits in the Terms before using AI-generated work commercially.
• Confirm commercial rights for every tool and contributor before launch.
• Read the carve-outs: images, caps, shares, and credit lines.
• Keep a license folder per book with receipts and terms.
• Audit pasted-in assets — fonts, photos, templates — separately.
• Remember: store acceptance is not proof of ownership.