Cost
A license fee, if the agreement has one, sits beside the token price. This card does not add a fee. The Llama 4 license text says the grant is royalty-free inside its conditions. That is what that license says, not a price for every model.
Map · Ship & Maintain · 10 · Licensing
Concept card · Ship & Maintain
Licensing
Licensing is the agreement that says what the model, and the text you send with it, allow you to ship.
What the model and the data allow you to ship.
What changed
Oct 18: First card. The picture separates an API agreement, one weight license, and the document you retrieve. Sources are OpenAI's Services Agreement and Meta's Llama 4 Community License. This card is not legal advice.
1 What it is
An API and a set of downloadable weights are covered by different documents. OpenAI's Services Agreement grants the customer a non-exclusive right to access and use the Services, including the right to use the API to integrate the Services into customer applications and to make those applications available to end users. Meta's Llama 4 Community License, effective April 5, 2025, grants a non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free limited license to use, reproduce, distribute, copy, create derivative works of, and modify the Llama Materials. That license also sets redistribution conditions, including displaying "Built with Llama" and providing a copy of the agreement. It says that if, on the Llama 4 version release date, the licensee's products had more than 700 million monthly active users in the preceding calendar month, you must request a license from Meta. That threshold is what this license says. It is not a rule for other models. The text you retrieve, such as a policy your company wrote or a page someone else holds rights in, is not granted by the model license. This card is not legal advice. Read the agreement for the weights or the API you call, and the terms that cover the documents.
2 Why it matters
Quality
Shipping under the wrong document can force a removal later. Write the model name, the agreement URL, and the date next to the release.
Risk
Open weights is not a synonym for ship anything. The Llama 4 license is a limited license with conditions, and its text says you are responsible for determining whether your use is appropriate. A different file can restrict commercial use even when the download page says the weights are available.
3 How to apply · try today
For the model you plan to ship, open the agreement that covers it: API terms or the weight license in the download. Write down whether you may offer it to your users, and whether you must show an attribution. Then open the terms for one document you retrieve and write down whether you may put it in a prompt and show the answer.
Common mistake
Reading a model card's summary and skipping the license, or treating the model license as permission to republish someone else's document.
Self-check
Does the model license cover the policy document you retrieve?
Coming soon. The model name, the agreement URL, the attribution the agreement requires, and the terms for one retrieved document.
Coming soon. How the OpenAI Services Agreement describes API use in a customer application, and how the Llama 4 license describes redistribution and the monthly-active-user condition.
Questions
- What is licensing?
- Licensing is the agreement that says what the model, and the text you send with it, allow you to ship.
- Is this card legal advice?
- No. It points at two agreements that were open on 2026-10-18. Read the agreement that covers the model you ship, and the terms that cover the documents you retrieve.
- Does the Llama 4 license apply to every open model?
- No. The 700 million monthly-active-user condition and the "Built with Llama" line are in the Llama 4 Community License. Another model's license can say something else.