How OMLA works
One license, one signed file, one piece of open math. This page walks the full loop with pictures and real numbers — no jargon required.
The loop, start to finish
From publishing a model to money arriving in the creator's wallet, there are five steps — and OMLA is not one of them.
Creator signs a manifest
A small JSON file naming the model, its lineage, its royalty split, and where to pay.
It ships with the model
In the repo, the model card, the release page — the terms travel with the weights.
A product makes money with it
An app, an API, a service — any commercial use of the model's outputs.
The company runs the resolver
Free, open math. Revenue goes in; an exact amount per creator wallet comes out.
Creators get paid directly
Wallet to wallet, once a quarter, within 60 days of quarter end.
One signed file does all the work
The manifest is the product. Here is what's inside one, in plain English.
Want the exact fields? Read the manifest spec · Build one in your browser
Do you owe anything?
Two questions. Most people are done after the first one.
1. Are you making money with the model?
A product, a paid API, a service that uses the model's outputs commercially.
2. Is your entity under $200,000 in annual revenue — and not directly selling the model's outputs?
The floor is measured for the whole legal entity, on trailing twelve-month revenue. "Directly selling outputs" means things like charging per generated image or reselling inference.
Ready to act on it? The commercial-use guide has the full checklist, a settlement calculator, and a manifest verifier.
Where the money goes
A real example: an image app charges a flat $10,000/quarter subscription and generates images with a fine-tuned base model plus two LoRA style-packs. Nobody can trace one dollar to one model — and nobody needs to. Count generations, apply each model's declared weight, and the resolver produces an exact split.
| Who | Share of $3,000 owed |
|---|---|
| Foundation model creator | $2,746.36 |
| Fine-tuner who built the base checkpoint | $144.55 |
| "Anime style" LoRA creator | $81.82 |
| "Product photography" LoRA creator | $27.27 |
| 30% of $10,000 in subscription revenue | $3,000.00 |
Every cent is integer arithmetic — no floating point ever touches a share. See the full math → or reproduce it in the calculator.
Common questions, short answers
What is OMLA, in one sentence?
A public license for open AI models that gives commercial users a choice — share your derivative back, or pay the creators 30% of applicable revenue — plus a signed registry and free math that make the license practical to follow.
Does OMLA ever hold my money?
Never. Payments go wallet to wallet, payer to creator. OMLA has no account system, receives no reports, and keeps no records of usage, payers, or payments — because it never receives them.
The model I use has no OMLA manifest. Do I owe anything?
No. The license is opt-in: a model with no OMLA manifest carries no OMLA obligation. OMLA makes no claim over open models that never adopted it. More on this →
What do I actually do at the end of a quarter?
List the OMLA-licensed models your product used, work out 30% of the greater of attributable revenue or model run cost, run the resolver, and pay each wallet directly within 60 days. Nothing is filed with OMLA. The step-by-step guide →
How do I know a manifest wasn't tampered with?
The creator's signature covers the whole document, including every payment address. Verify it offline with nothing but the manifest and the public key — paste it into the verifier to see it run.
Is the license final?
Yes. OMLA Public License 2.1 is operative as of 2026-08-11. Models may now be validly licensed under it. Read the license →
More questions answered on the full FAQ.
The primary sources
Everything above is a picture of something you can read in full.