Permitted for Commercial Film Use: Yes – Unreal Engine can be used to create content for a theatrically released or monetized film. Under Epic’s standard EULA, there are no royalties or fees for using Unreal Engine to produce linear content (e.g. films, TV, streaming video)unrealengine.com. This means you can use Unreal to render VFX or animation in a commercial movie without paying Epic. (Royalties apply only to interactive products like games that incorporate the engine at runtime.) If your company earns over $1 million USD annually, Epic requires purchasing Unreal Subscription seats for each user; under that revenue threshold, no engine fees or royalties applyunrealengine.com. In summary, as long as you have a proper Unreal license and follow the EULA, you may freely use it in commercial film production.
Licensing Notes: Epic explicitly allows films, videos, and stills to be released with Unreal. They encourage crediting where possible, but it’s not mandated by the license. Only if you distribute the engine itself or its source code do additional restrictions applyunrealengine.com. For a film, you’re just exporting video frames, so there’s no special royalty. (Any third-party marketplace assets used should be used consistent with their licenses; generally, marketplace content can be used in rendered linear contentforums.unrealengine.com.)
Seat-Based (for other commercial uses):
If you use Unreal for internal tools, simulations, or other non-game projects (i.e. not licensing an app to end-users) and your organization’s gross revenue in the past 12 months is over $1M, you must purchase a seat license unrealengine.com. The current cost is $1,850 per seat per year unrealengine.com.
Permitted for Commercial Use: Yes – ControlNet refers to AI model add-ons for controlling image generation (often used with Stable Diffusion). The ControlNet models are released under licenses that allow commercial projects. For example, Stability AI’s official ControlNet models for Stable Diffusion 3.5 are provided under the Stability AI Community License, which explicitly permits commercial use (free for organizations under $1 M revenue, with enterprise licensing above that)stability.aistability.ai. In practice, an indie filmmaker or small studio can use ControlNet models at no cost in a commercial film as long as they fall under the free-use criteria. The outputs generated via ControlNet remain your property – Stability’s license notes that users retain ownership of media created, with no restrictive licensing on the outputsstability.ai.
Licensing Notes: Different ControlNet implementations may have slightly different licenses. Many community ControlNets are released as open-source (MIT or CreativeML OpenRAIL) which allow free commercial usage. Always check the specific model’s license. But generally, using ControlNet to guide image generation for your movie’s visuals is legally fine. If using Stability’s models and your company exceeds the revenue cap, you’d need an Enterprise agreement (similar to how their new SDXL models work). Other than that, there are no special attribution requirements.
If your company’s revenue is above $1M, you must transition to a paid Enterprise license obtained from Stability AI to continue using ControlNet in production stability.ai.
Permitted for Commercial Use: Yes, with Proper Access – Veo is the codename of Google DeepMind’s advanced text-to-video model (Veo 2 / Veo 3). It’s available via certain platforms (e.g. Google’s Vertex AI, or third-party services) typically under paid enterprise access. Veo supports commercial use as long as you’re using it through an appropriate subscription or license. According to an official Veo3 FAQ, “Yes, Veo 3 supports commercial use through appropriate subscription plans and enterprise access.”veo3.ai. In practical terms, this means if you have been granted use of Veo (for example, via Google’s AI Cloud with permission, or via a service like VideoGen/Envato that has Veo integrated), you can integrate the resulting AI-generated videos into your commercial film.
Google’s terms for its generative AI (like Veo) require that you comply with their content policy, but they don’t claim ownership of what you create. So if you legitimately gain access (which might involve significant cost – as the budget sets aside $6000 for Veo API usage, presumably covering an enterprise fee), the outputs are yours to use in distribution. If Veo was used to generate, say, an 8-second effects shot or concept footage in your movie, that’s legally fine given you’ve gone through the proper channels for access.
Licensing Notes: Make sure to not use any unofficial or leaked access to Veo. Use it through approved means (Google’s platform or a partner). Those platforms will have you agree to terms, but none of those terms forbids commercial release usage – they mostly concern not doing anything illegal or disallowed (like generating deepfake porn, etc.). Veo content might be watermarked or limited if used in a trial context; ensure you have a license that removes any watermark for film-quality output. No public credit to Google or DeepMind is required, though if you wanted you could mention “visuals created with Google DeepMind’s Veo” – purely optional.