MiniMax has just released the weights for H3, its 33B open-weight video model, on Hugging Face. But there's a catch: the license excludes users in the US, EU, UK and South Korea – precisely because of growing regulation of AI-generated video.
What is MiniMax H3?
H3 is an omni-modal model with 33 billion parameters, with a particular focus on video generation. It's one of the few major open-weight projects that combines text, image and video understanding in a single model.
The geographic block
What's interesting (and controversial) is the license's geographic restrictions:
| Region | Access |
|---|---|
| China | Allowed |
| Rest of Asia | Allowed |
| US | Blocked |
| EU | Blocked |
| UK | Blocked |
| South Korea | Blocked |
MiniMax's stated reason is the increasing regulation of video generation – particularly concerns about deepfakes and misuse.
A paradox for open source
The block creates a paradox: a model calling itself “open weight” cannot legally be used in many of the world's largest markets – including the entire EU. For European developers, this effectively means H3 cannot be used commercially at home.
It underscores a growing trend: open weight does not necessarily mean freely available. Licenses are becoming increasingly complex and geographically conditional.
Consequences for European teams
For Danish and European AI teams, this means:
- You cannot legally train or fine-tune H3 for commercial purposes.
- Alternatives like Qwen, DeepSeek or local models become more relevant.
- It raises the question of European AI sovereignty again.