Yes. Any image you upload to the BackgroundErase API remains your exclusive property. We do not claim any intellectual property rights over the images you upload.
Direct answer: Uploading an image to BackgroundErase does not transfer ownership of that image to us. Your content remains yours.
This is a core part of our privacy-first mentality. We built BackgroundErase as a tool for processing your images, not as a system that quietly turns uploaded content into company-owned assets. Using the API to remove a background does not change who owns the original image.
What ownership means in practice
When we say you keep ownership of your images, we mean that uploading content to BackgroundErase does not give us intellectual property ownership over it. We do not become the copyright owner, we do not claim the image as ours, and we do not treat your upload as something that now belongs to BackgroundErase simply because it passed through our system.
That matters for individuals, businesses, agencies, and platforms alike. Product photos, client assets, marketing creatives, marketplace images, internal design files, and other commercial media do not lose their ownership status just because they were processed with our API.
- Your upload remains your property
- We do not claim copyright ownership over it
- Using the API does not assign the image to BackgroundErase
- Processing the image does not change the underlying ownership of the original file
We are a processing tool, not an ownership transfer
BackgroundErase is designed to perform a service on your behalf. You send us an image, we process it, and we return a result. That workflow should not be confused with an ownership transfer. The role of the platform is to provide the background removal service, not to take legal ownership of the creative material you submit.
This is especially important because some users are working with images that have real commercial value. In those workflows, clarity matters. Teams should not have to wonder whether using a tool quietly gives the vendor rights over core business assets. Our answer is simple: it does not.
Original images and processed outputs
The main point of this policy is about the images you upload: they remain your exclusive property. If you use those images to generate processed outputs through BackgroundErase, that does not give us ownership over the underlying uploaded content either.
In normal usage, customers think of the processed result as part of their workflow too. The important policy point we want to make clear here is that we do not claim intellectual property rights over the images you upload to obtain that result.
This is separate from model training consent
Ownership and model-training permission are related topics, but they are not the same thing. Keeping ownership means the image is still yours. Separately, our privacy-first policy means we do not use your images to improve our models unless you explicitly opt in.
That opt-in control lives at the top of the account page . If you do not explicitly turn it on, we do not retain your data for over 24 hours and we do not use your uploads for model improvement by default.
Important distinction: You keep ownership of your images, and we also do not use them for model improvement by default unless you explicitly opt in.
Why this matters for commercial and client work
For many users, this is not just a legal technicality. It is a key trust requirement. Agencies process client-owned assets. Ecommerce brands process product imagery. Marketplaces process user-generated listings. SaaS companies process customer uploads. In all of those cases, the platform should not be claiming rights over the content just because it was uploaded for processing.
A clear ownership policy makes BackgroundErase easier to use in serious production environments because teams can explain the relationship simply: the images remain owned by the customer or rightful owner, and BackgroundErase is the tool used to process them.
- Safer for agencies working with client media
- Clearer for brands protecting proprietary assets
- Better for marketplaces and SaaS platforms handling user uploads
- Stronger fit for businesses that need clear IP boundaries
What if I upload images on behalf of a client or employer?
The simplest way to think about it is this: uploading the image to BackgroundErase does not move ownership to us. If the image belongs to your client, employer, brand, or another rights holder, using our API does not change that. The content remains owned by the rightful owner rather than becoming ours.
In other words, BackgroundErase does not claim ownership over customer uploads, whether those uploads come from an individual creator, a business account, or a team processing images for someone else.
Our policy in one sentence
Any image you upload to the BackgroundErase API remains your exclusive property, and we do not claim any intellectual property rights over the images you upload.
How this fits with our privacy-first approach
Our privacy-first policy and our ownership policy reinforce each other. We do not want users to feel that they are giving up control of their content merely by using an AI tool. That is why we emphasize both points:
- You keep ownership of your images
- We do not claim intellectual property rights over them
- We do not use them for model improvement unless you explicitly opt in
- If you do not opt in, we do not retain your data for over 24 hours
Together, those policies create a clearer and more privacy-conscious relationship between the platform and the people using it.
Check your account settings
If you want to review the data-usage setting tied to model improvement, visit backgrounderase.com/account and look at the opt-in control at the top of the page. That setting does not change who owns your uploaded images, but it does control whether you explicitly allow broader model-improvement use.