Reelvana vs CapCut: what the terms say about your videos

A calm, sourced look at what CapCut's updated terms actually permit, and how Reelvana handles your footage. No scare stories, no claims we cannot back up.

Updated July 2026 · by the Reelvana team

What CapCut's terms permit

This section reports what has been written about CapCut's terms. We are quoting reporting and the terms themselves, not making an accusation. Read the sources and CapCut's current terms yourself before deciding.

• CapCut's updated Terms of Service, reported effective June 12, 2025, grant ByteDance a “non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, perpetual and worldwide licence” to use, modify, adapt, reproduce, distribute and store user content.
• A June 2025 change extended those rights to affiliates, partners and third parties.
• The rights cover a user's name, image and likeness for sponsored or promotional content, without compensation.
• They apply to unpublished or stored content, such as drafts, and survive account deletion.

This was covered by TechRadar and Digital Information World.

Two important caveats, in fairness

It matters to be precise here, because the loud version of this story is not the accurate one.

• This is a licence, not a transfer of ownership. CapCut publicly says it does not claim to own user content. A licence lets a company do certain things with your content; you still own it. Those are different, and the difference matters.
• The licence attaches to content uploaded to CapCut's cloud, not to purely local edits. Because a lot of CapCut's processing happens in the cloud, what that covers in practice depends on which features you use.

For context on the on-device point: Apple's own developer policy states that “Data that is processed only on device is not 'collected' and does not need to be disclosed in your answers.” In other words, editing that stays on your phone is treated very differently from content sent to a server.

How Reelvana works

Reelvana is built the other way around. Your video never leaves your phone. Recording, editing, on-device captions and export all run on the device, so for footage there is nothing to upload and nothing to license.

Three features use the cloud, and only when you use them:

• Cloud captions. If you choose the cloud caption model instead of the free on-device one, the app sends the clip's audio track for transcription. Your video is never sent.
• AI script writing. When you generate or rewrite a script, the app sends your topic or prompt text.
• Vana, the voice assistant. Pro only. When you tap the microphone the app records until you stop talking, usually a few seconds, and up to 12 seconds before it cuts off. On its default "Cloud first" recognition setting it sends that recording to our transcription endpoint, and on to OpenAI or ElevenLabs. If the transcript comes back with at least two words but the on-device rules cannot work out what you meant, it also sends the whole transcribed sentence to a second service of ours, a Cloudflare Worker, which passes it to OpenAI. The full sentence leaves the phone; we trim it to 500 characters only after it arrives. A language code, whether you have an edit open, and counts of the layers in it go with it. Vana asks before its first upload, and answering "Keep it on device" blocks both legs, the recording and the transcript, at the cost of understanding fewer phrasings. That prompt arrived in the release now rolling out, so a copy of the app that has not updated yet does not ask. Note that switching Recognition to "On device" afterwards stops the audio but not the transcript. Your video is never sent.

We will be honest about the rest, too. There is no advertising SDK and we do not sell your data. Like most apps, Reelvana uses Firebase and RevenueCat for crash reports, basic analytics and purchases. We are not claiming Reelvana collects nothing, or that there is no server. The point that matters for your work is simpler: your recorded footage stays on your device.

Side by side

	CapCut	Reelvana
Where your video is processed	Cloud-based for much of its AI	On your device
Content licence over your uploads	Broad licence to ByteDance (as reported)	None; video is never uploaded
On-device editing option	Partial; many features are cloud	Yes, the whole pipeline
Advertising SDK / selling data	Not covered here	No ad SDK; we don't sell data
Pricing	Free tier with paid Pro	Free, with monthly / yearly / lifetime Pro

CapCut's terms and features change over time. This page reflects reporting and terms described as of mid-2025; check CapCut's current Terms of Service before deciding. The CapCut points here are attributed to the linked sources, not presented as our own findings.

Frequently asked questions

Does CapCut own my videos?

No. CapCut publicly says it does not claim ownership of your content. What changed is the licence. CapCut's updated Terms of Service, reported effective June 12, 2025, grant ByteDance a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, perpetual and worldwide licence to use, modify, adapt, reproduce, distribute and store user content. That is a broad licence, not a transfer of ownership, and it attaches to content uploaded to CapCut's cloud, not to edits you keep purely local.

Does Reelvana upload my video?

No. Your video never leaves your phone. Recording, editing, on-device captions and export all run on the device. Three features send anything at all, and only when you use them: cloud captions send the clip's audio, AI script writing sends your topic, and Vana, the Pro voice assistant, sends the command you speak as a short audio recording. Your video file is never uploaded.

What do CapCut's updated terms let it do with my content?

As reported, CapCut's updated terms grant ByteDance a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, perpetual and worldwide licence to use, modify, adapt, reproduce, distribute and store user content. A June 2025 change extended those rights to affiliates, partners and third parties. The rights cover a user's name, image and likeness for sponsored or promotional content without compensation, apply to unpublished or stored content such as drafts, and survive account deletion.

Do CapCut's terms apply to edits I never upload?

The licence attaches to content uploaded to CapCut's cloud, not to purely local edits. Because much of CapCut's processing is cloud-based, the practical answer depends on which features you use. Reelvana sidesteps the question entirely, because your footage never leaves the device in the first place.

Is Reelvana completely private?

We will not claim it collects nothing, because that would not be true. Your video never leaves your phone, and recording, editing, on-device captions and export run on the device. Three cloud features send data, and only when you use them: cloud captions (the clip's audio), AI script writing (your topic), and Vana, the Pro voice assistant (the command you speak, as audio). There is no advertising SDK and we do not sell your data. Like most apps, Reelvana uses Firebase and RevenueCat for crash reports, basic analytics and purchases.