--- title: "Meta's free Muse Spark Open license forces API sellers over $20 million in revenue to sign; Nebius sells it" description: "Meta's \"open\" 816-billion-parameter model carries a license clause that requires API sellers earning over $20 million a year to notify Meta and sign a separate agreement. Nebius, the only listed launch partner, is selling the tokens." publisher: "The Inference" section: "Platforms" published: 2026-10-20T15:34:58.449Z modified: 2026-10-20T15:34:58.449Z canonical: https://theinference.org/article/meta-s-free-muse-spark-open-license-forces-api-sellers-over-20-million-in-revenue-to-sign-nebius-sells-it language: en keywords: "Meta, Nebius, Open Models, Licensing, Inference" --- # Meta's free Muse Spark Open license forces API sellers over $20 million in revenue to sign; Nebius sells it > Meta's "open" 816-billion-parameter model carries a license clause that requires API sellers earning over $20 million a year to notify Meta and sign a separate agreement. Nebius, the only listed launch partner, is selling the tokens. On October 15, [Alexandr Wang](https://theinference.org/markets/people/alexandr-wang)'s [Meta](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/meta) Superintelligence Labs published the weights of Muse Spark Open, an 816-billion-parameter model that any developer with a disk can download. The same day, the model appeared on seven API platforms: [Baseten](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/baseten), [Fireworks AI](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/fireworks-ai), [Groq](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/groq), Modal, [Nebius](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/nebius), OpenRouter and [Together AI](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/together-ai) [1][2]. What looked like a gift carried a hook buried in the paperwork, and the hook points at the listed company in the lineup. ## The gift has terms attached [Meta's blog](https://research.meta.ai/blog/muse-spark-open) calls the Muse Model License one that "allow[s] many developers to use the model for free" [1]. VentureBeat, which read the actual license text, [reports the clause](https://venturebeat.com/technology/meta-unveils-muse-spark-open-the-new-top-u-s-open-weights-model-and-it-runs-on-two-paired-mac-desktops): when a licensee and its affiliates book more than $20 million in aggregate gross revenue over any 12 months, it must notify Meta and sign a separate written agreement before serving Spark Open or its derivatives as a model-as-a-service business. The trigger is the seller's total revenue, not the revenue from Spark Open tokens. Internal deployment, research and embedding the model in your own product are exempt [4]. The free tier is real; it simply excludes exactly the businesses Meta signed up as launch partners. ## The open-flag flips who pays Here sits the complication. [DeepSeek](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/deepseek), [Black Forest Labs](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/black-forest-labs) and [Perplexity](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/perplexity) all shipped giveaways this month that left the price with the platform. Muse Spark Open inverts it: the downloaders pay nothing, the rent claim sits with Meta against whoever sells tokens at scale. Nebius (NBIS), the only named partner whose shares trade, is [pitching Token Factory as its next inference business](https://theinference.org/article/nebius-borrowed-against-microsoft-and-meta-to-build-the-machine-they-prepaid), with production inference workloads more than tripling in Q2 2026 and [an 18.3% pay-as-you-go price increase from October 1 reported](https://financefeeds.com/nebius-inference-prices-up-18-3-percent-token-factory/) but not formally confirmed by the company [5]. None of Nebius's Token Factory disclosures has mentioned a license obligation to a direct competitor [5][4]. That silence is the disclosure gap investors should price. *Chart: **Muse Spark Open API pricing matches Meta's paid hosted Spark rates** Bars comparing total API cost per million tokens for Muse Spark Open against five peers on Together AI's price list.* *Blended API cost per 1M tokens ($1.25 input plus $4.25 output) from Together AI's price list, October 15, 2026, versus competing models at published rates on the same list. [4]* ## The model is good, not dominant The receipts behind the hype check out with footnotes. Muse Spark Open [scored 1511 on Arena's Code Arena: WebDev board](https://cryptobriefing.com/meta-muse-spark-open-top-us-open-model/), the top US open model, though the qualifier is doing work: on Meta's own table it trails Kimi K3 and GLM 5.3 on terminal coding and software engineering, and its Intelligence Index score of 39 sits below [Xiaomi](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/xiaomi)'s MiMo-V2.6-Pro at 46 [3][4]. It did land a genuine first: it runs on two paired M5 Ultra Mac Studios, about a terabyte of unified memory on a desk [1][3]. ## What to watch The counterpoint: $20 million is a low bar for an API platform but the clause has no published fee schedule. Meta may negotiate nothing, or may charge at market terms like any licensor; the record does not say. Watch three dated tells: Nebius's Q3 call, where management should face the license question for the first time; the missing public price list if any named partner crosses the threshold; and Together AI's own pricing, which already lists Spark Open at the same rates Meta charges for hosted Spark, $1.25 in and $4.25 out per million tokens [4]. Meta built the open-weight goodwill and kept a claim on the tollbooth. Someone had to pay for the roads. ## Takeaway Meta's Muse Spark Open is open for download but its license makes API sellers over $20 million in annual revenue notify Meta and sign a separate agreement, and Nebius, the only listed launch partner selling the tokens, has never disclosed the obligation. ## Sources 1. [Meta AI Research, Introducing Muse Spark Open, Oct 15 2026](https://research.meta.ai/blog/muse-spark-open) 2. [Alexandr Wang on X, Muse Spark Open launch availability, Oct 15 2026](https://x.com/alexandr_wang/status/2110779650691723485) 3. [Crypto Briefing, Meta's Muse Spark Open (Max) tops US open models in Code Arena WebDev, Oct 16 2026](https://cryptobriefing.com/meta-muse-spark-open-top-us-open-model/) 4. [VentureBeat, Meta unveils Muse Spark Open, the new top U.S. open weights model, Oct 15 2026](https://venturebeat.com/technology/meta-unveils-muse-spark-open-the-new-top-u-s-open-weights-model-and-it-runs-on-two-paired-mac-desktops) 5. [FinanceFeeds, Nebius Raised Inference Prices 18.3%, Not Cut Them, Sep 25 2026](https://financefeeds.com/nebius-inference-prices-up-18-3-percent-token-factory/) --- Meta's free Muse Spark Open license forces API sellers over $20 million in revenue to sign; Nebius sells it — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/meta-s-free-muse-spark-open-license-forces-api-sellers-over-20-million-in-revenue-to-sign-nebius-sells-it