A copy that survives against material deleted
These two entries are the extremes of the stored work column. On one, material lives where the production put it and a withdrawal reaches nothing. On the other, the shutdown notice states that data associated with the product is deleted once a final export window passes. As of 2026-09-22.
| On this point | Wan-AI | Sora |
|---|---|---|
| Where material lives | On storage the production controls | Inside the product, until exported |
| What a shutdown reaches | Nothing already downloaded | Everything not exported in time |
| Is there a route out | Not needed; the files never moved | An export window, then deletion |
| Who sets the deadline | Nobody | The vendor, in the notice |
| What the production must do | Keep its own backups | Export before the window closes |
Inclusion rule. Both cells on a row come from the entry's own published pages: a model card for the publisher, the discontinuation notice for the closed product. Order. Where material lives first, then what reaches it.
1One documented deletion is the whole evidence base
Nobody else in this register has announced an ending, so nobody else has had to say what becomes of the material inside. The single case resolved as deletion after a window, which is the harshest outcome a reader would have guessed.
That makes it the assumption worth holding for every blank cell in the column. Until an entry publishes something kinder, an unanswered question about files is not reassurance.
2The opposite extreme is unglamorous
Where the weights are downloaded, nobody can delete anything and nobody keeps backups either. Retention becomes the production's own discipline, which succeeds or fails on a schedule nobody publishes.
Both arrangements can lose material. Only one of them loses it on a date announced in advance, which is a real advantage of the arrangement that looks worse.
3What the pairing recommends
Archive delivered files outside whatever produced them, at the quality actually delivered, with the model and date recorded. That advice survives both extremes and every arrangement between them.
It is the conclusion the one documented shutdown forced on everybody it affected, and the planning page sets out the rest of the same checklist.
- How a copy is obtainedDownload commands for the weights are printed on the model card
- What happens to the workData associated with Sora is deleted after any final export window passes
4Sources
Both readings come from the pages the entries publish themselves: Wan-AI and Sora, read 2026-09-22. The column being compared is Stored work. Other pairs: Pika and invideo AI, Pika and Adobe Firefly.