EU AI icon: black, white or 50% transparency on video?

The Commission's icons come in four variations: black, white, black with 50% transparency, and white with 50% transparency. The page does not say which to use on video. Its rule is that the icon be clearly perceivable, so choose the variant that stays legible on your footage and test it on your brightest and darkest scenes. This is not legal advice.

Icon facts are from the Commission's page, last updated 24 September 2026, read 2026-10-01. Compose facts are from Timeline compose.

What does the Commission say about the variants?

Only that there are four, free as SVG or PNG, with no attribution needed. It says nothing about contrast, so the choice is yours to test. It does report that user testing found performance improved across all measures when the basic icon came with a text label.

How do I compare variants on my own clip?

Make one compose request per variant on the same clip, with a distinct Idempotency-Key for each, and review the four MP4s together. Both inputs must already be Sume-hosted. The docs I read do not say how transparency in a supplied PNG is handled, so inspect the 50% outputs instead of assuming.

Which variant should I try first on which footage?

The Commission gives no mapping, so this is a test plan, not a rule. Judge each render at the size viewers will see it.

What if only part of the clip needs the icon?

Cut the range first with Video trim, which takes one hosted clip plus a range and returns a new MP4 holding only that range, then compose onto the result. Size and margin are covered in EU AI icon size on video, and the basic burn-in in the first-frame guide.