Licence v-1.1 removes “commercial outputs” line – official clarification?
On the Hugging Face model page, under “Key Features” point 6, it states:
“Generated outputs can be used for personal, scientific, and commercial purposes, as described in the FLUX.1 [dev] Non-Commercial License.”
This matches the language from the previous v1.0 license (e.g., “You may use Output for any purpose (including for commercial purposes)”).
However, in v1.1 (posted June 26, 2025), this line is removed. In its place:
Section 1(c) defines Non-Commercial Purpose as excluding any use where you receive direct or indirect payment “arising from the use of […] Outputs.”
Section 2(d) says you’re responsible for Outputs, but does not repeat the earlier commercial-use permission.
This change seems to imply that outputs are now also subject to the non-commercial restriction, which would be a major shift from how the licence was previously understood.
1) Are generated outputs still allowed for commercial use under v1.1?
2) If not, does Black Forest Labs intend to update the model card text to reflect that change?
3) Is there a paid licence available for individuals or freelancers who wish to use FLUX.1 [dev] outputs in professional work (e.g., video editing, content creation, etc.)?
Thanks for your amazing work on FLUX.1 – it's an incredibly capable tool, especially Kontext. I’d love to use it in real client workflows, and just want to ensure I do so in full compliance with the latest terms.
Looking forward to clarification!
This license is problematic.
This license is problematic.
Indeed, I think they were just chasing popularity at first, and now that they've got it, they've changed the license. I mean, I don’t mind paying for services, obviously, because they're building the product and absolutely have the right to charge for it. But honestly, this move feels super cheap. But I don't mind or worry because soon we'll have open source options as AI is growing fast enough.
Section 1(c) defines Non-Commercial Purpose as excluding any use where you receive direct or indirect payment “arising from the use of […] Outputs.
The license is problematic but this is not in it.
“Non-Commercial Purpose” means any of the following uses, but only so far as you do not receive any direct or indirect payment arising from the use of the FLUX.1 [dev] Model, Derivatives, or FLUX Content Filters (as defined below): (i) personal use for research...
However, it could be argued that the outputs "arise from the use of" the model. Outputs are conspicuously absent from every description of license grants and restrictions, however, which only mention the model and derivatives, which are explicitly defined to exclude outputs. The preamble outlining what the whole license covers also fails to mention outputs in both the sentence about what the license covers, and the following sentence about what qualifies as model materials.
This was an area of ambiguity in the last version of the license as well, where it did explicitly list profits from outputs. However, this was in a definition, not a restriction. And the "Non-commercial" restriction as so defined was only ever used in reference to Models and Derivatives. This leads to the interpretation that outputs being included in the definition of non-commercial is intended to apply to activities pertaining to the model and derivatives, such that someone couldn't contend "I'm not selling access to the model, user prompts never hit the model, I'm just selling the outputs," while offering a service that in effect offers access to the model. In other words, if you are doing something covered by the license and you profit from outputs, it would be a violation, but commercially using the outputs independent of activities otherwise covered is fine.
The only wording within the new license (wording outside of the license is irrelevant either way) that could be interpreted as covering outputs is:
a. use, modify, copy, reproduce, create Derivatives of, or Distribute the FLUX.1 [dev] Model (or any Derivative thereof, or any data produced by the FLUX.1 [dev] Model), in whole or in part, (i) for any commercial or production purposes...
Outputs surely qualify as "data produced by [the model]" under strict interpretation. However, further down they say:
(including in connection with any Output, results or data generated from such access or use...
In which case they specifically use Output as separate from "results" or "data". Output is a defined term in the document. Data and results are not. The failure to use Outputs in the above sentence if they intend it to cover outputs is egregious.
Conclusion: BFL needs to hire better lawyers and copywriters, make it policy to produce a non-binding plain text outline of the license and their intent with it, and must publicly clarify their intent ASAP and revise their license to match.
Also BFL, your license display here on Huggingface is broken as hell, so you should fix that too.
Totally agree with CognitiveSourceress, we need a simple and easy to understand licence. but I hate the fact that how they always shy away and never answer the very important questions about the licence when people point out the flaws in their license, and their license cost for Flux Kontext dev as of right now is $999, how the hell any individual will be able to afford that? Train on publicly available data or maybe even copyrighted data "Because your model is able to generate characters which are copyright protected" without consent and all then say our model is gated by licence that doesn't even make sense.
They may have updated again because it now clearly states the difference between the models/derivatives and outputs (https://bfl.ai/legal/non-commercial-license-terms )
"d. Outputs. We claim no ownership rights in and to the Outputs. You are solely responsible for the Outputs you generate and their subsequent uses in accordance with this License."
So I take that to mean you own the copyright to the images, but you cant use them for profit without a commercial licence.
Thank you for your comments.
We did not intend to alter the spirit of the license concerning the issues you raised.
To clarify this, we have reverted Sections 2.d and 4.b to be in line with the corresponding parts in the FLUX.1 [dev] Non-Commercial License.