Is GridBank footage exclusive? What non-exclusive UGC licensing means for your ads

Short answer: stock footage licences, including the ones most UGC libraries sell, are non-exclusive by default. The same clip can be licensed to more than one customer. That is normal, it is legal, and it is rarely the problem people fear — but it does change how you should brief and edit.

What non-exclusive licensing means

A non-exclusive licence grants you the right to use a clip; it does not grant you the only right to use it. The creator keeps copyright and can license the same footage to other buyers, and the platform can keep selling it.

Exclusive licensing is the opposite: the creator agrees not to license that footage to anyone else, usually for a defined period or category, and usually for a much higher fee. It is a separate, negotiated deal — not something a monthly subscription includes anywhere in this market.

Is that a problem for paid social?

Usually not, for three practical reasons. Your hook, your product, your captions and your edit are what makes the ad; the underlying footage is one ingredient. Audiences are targeted, so overlap between two brands using the same clip is far smaller than it feels. And the alternative — commissioning an exclusive shoot for every test — is what most teams cannot afford.

It becomes a real problem in three specific cases: you are a category leader whose competitor uses the same clip, the clip contains a recognisable person whose image you are implying endorses your product, or you are building a brand asset that must be unique for years.

Five edits that make a shared clip yours

1. 01Rewrite the hook. The first 1.5 seconds decide the scroll. If your opening frame and line are different, the ad reads as different.
2. 02Crop and re-time. Punch in, reframe to your product-safe area, and change the speed. A re-cropped clip is unrecognisable at feed size.
3. 03Grade it. A 10-second colour pass — cooler shadows, warmer highlights, a consistent brand LUT — separates your ad from the source.
4. 04Voice it. A creator-style VO or your own founder read makes the footage yours in the viewer's ear.
5. 05Own the captions. Your typography, your words, your pacing. Captions carry most of the comprehension in vertical feeds.

Check the ad libraries before you use a clip

Two minutes of diligence prevents the awkward moment of seeing your competitor's ad and yours side by side.

• Search the Meta Ad Library for the clip's visual signature or your competitor's page and scan recent creative.
• Check the TikTok Creative Center top-ads section for the category you are entering.
• Search the clip's title plus the platform name — if it has been used heavily, editors usually mention it.

This is not a guarantee, but it moves you from “no idea” to “informed”.

When you need exclusive content

Buy exclusivity, or commission a buyout, when the footage is doing brand work rather than performance work: a hero film, a founder story, a product demonstration that must not appear anywhere else, or anything a competitor could weaponise by reusing.

A creator buyout means paying a creator directly for exclusive use, often with a defined term and territory. On Bejana you can request custom footage from a creator and agree the scope directly — including exclusivity — rather than relying on a stock licence to do something it was never designed to do.

How Bejana handles licensing

Bejana clips are licensed non-exclusively, the standard for this market. Every plan includes paid and organic use plus client work, downloaded clips stay licensed for life, and you can use them without a usage window expiring. The creator keeps copyright, and you cannot resell the raw file as stock footage. Full wording is on the license page.

If exclusivity matters for a specific asset, ask. Exclusivity is a conversation with a creator, not a checkbox on a plan.