Non-commercial use: Free and unrestricted.
Commercial use: Pay 30% of an applicable basis—typically attributable revenue, compute/run cost, or another documented basis tying capital spent to running the model (or a portion of it).
Who pays: The party operating or selling access to the OMLA-licensed model. (End users generally do not pay separately if the service already pays OMLA royalties.)
OMLA was created to address the sustainability gap in open-source AI models. While open models serve a crucial purpose for research and development, they often lag behind proprietary alternatives like ChatGPT. The current business model for serving open models is unsustainable due to the high costs of model creation, training, and maintenance.
OMLA provides a solution by offering:
This framework ensures that creators can recoup their costs while maintaining open access for non-commercial purposes.
A permissive model license plus payment routing: free for personal/research; commercial use shares 30% of the applicable royalty basis with upstream creators.
Open access, not OSI-open-source, because royalties are required. The focus is sustainable creator compensation.
Send to the model’s OMLA wallet (crypto or payment pointer). Tools can batch micropayments and automate splits.
If you monetize outputs substantially generated by the model, treat it as Commercial Use.
No. You can keep it private; just honor the royalty if used commercially.
Declare base models and contribution percentages. Self-attribution is capped at 50% unless Board-approved.
Crypto (stablecoins recommended) and payment pointers. Fiat via partner processors or monthly settlement.
Verified ownership (model-card token), audited split contracts, 2FA on accounts, and public on-chain audit trails.
Scenario: Bob serves only OMLA-licensed models and charges $1/user/month.
Royalty basis: Model revenue ($1 per user).
Result: $1 × 30% = $0.30 per user owed to model creators.
Scenario: Hardware $200k over 2 years (=$100k/yr) + $100k/yr direct support; no attributable revenue.
Royalty basis: Annual run cost = $200k.
Result: $200k × 30% = $60,000 per year owed.
Scenario: $0.10/token × 1,000 tokens = $100 model revenue.
Result: 30% × $100 = $30 owed.
Scenario: Base training = 2,000 GPU-h; creator’s fine-tune = 500 GPU-h.
Share: 500 ÷ (2,000 + 500) = 20% of royalties from this model.
Example: If royalties total $10,000 → creator receives $2,000.
Scenario: Bot’s monthly compute cost = $5,000; sales attribution unclear.
Result: 30% × $5,000 = $1,500/month owed.
Scenario: Jenny pays a site $20/month; the site pays OMLA royalties.
Result: Jenny owes $0; the site pays based on its revenue/compute.
Scenario: $1,000/month GPU rental to run an OMLA-licensed model for a commercial app.
Result: 30% × $1,000 = $300/month owed.
Scenario: Base model training = 900 GPU-h; LoRA training = 100 GPU-h.
Creator share: 100 ÷ (900+100) = 10% of royalties when the LoRA is used.
Example: If customers spend $50,000 on compute → royalty = $15,000; LoRA creator gets $1,500.
Scenario: Alex buys $50 in credits on SiteY and uses images in paid ads.
Result: SiteY owes 30% of $50 = $15; Alex owes no separate royalty if SiteY pays.
Scenario: Pat buys $20 in credits on SiteZ (non-commercial license only) and uses images personally.
Result: SiteZ still sells model access → owes 30% of $20 = $6; Pat owes $0.
Scenario: Saved labor = 100 hrs × $50 = $5,000 value; no attributable revenue.
Result: 30% × $5,000 = $1,500 royalty. If there is truly no cost/value basis (e.g., fully depreciated hardware, no support, no value), base may be $0.
Scenario: $100/month subscription with multiple models; OMLA model contributes ~50% of value.
Royalty basis: Attribute $50 to OMLA model.
Result: 30% × $50 = $15 per user/month. Keep a short apportionment memo (compute share, gating role, counterfactual).
Flow: Anyone may file → OMLA notifies within 24h → if non-payable/invalid and unremedied, share set to 0% until fixed (others continue) → appeals reviewed within 7 days (extendable by notice).
Scenario: If 70% free and 30% OMLA, revenue $1,000 → OMLA base $300 → royalty $90. Free components reduce the royalty base.
Rule: Deduct reasonable routing/conversion fees up to 10% of the royalty. If one rail costs ~15%, choose an alternate method or conversion path to stay ≤10% and document the route and fees.