Indic Open License Deed
A plain-language guide to the Indic Open Model License covering Bodhan AI's speech, OCR, translation, and transliteration models.
Broad, no-cost access for research, government, nonprofit, and commercial use — with a few conditions attached.
This deed is a human-readable summary of the license, not a substitute for it. Where the two disagree, the full Indic Open Model License governs.
You're free to
No cost, no royalty, worldwide — for research, government, nonprofit, and commercial use, at any scale.
- ✅ Run it — for inference, in a product, in research, however you like.
- ✅ Change it — fine-tune, distill, quantize, merge, or otherwise build on it.
- ✅ Self-host it — power your own product or service with it, commercial or not.
- ✅ Share it — pass on copies of the model or your own version of it.
As long as you
Five conditions cover almost everything. The rest of the license is these, spelled out in legal detail.
1. Give credit
Wherever you ship the model or a derivative to anyone else, say where it came from — and don't strip out existing notices.
"Built with [Model Name] from Bodhan AI / AI4Bharat."
2. Pass it on the same way
If you give your fine-tuned or derived version to anyone else — hand it over, or run it as a service for them — it carries this exact license. You can't relicense it on different terms.
3. Ask before hosting it for others
Self-hosting is free. But if you're going to run it as an API or hosted service that other people or companies call directly, that needs Bodhan AI's written sign-off first — unless you're a nonprofit, government, or academic user, or you publicly release an equally capable open version within 90 days.
4. Don't use it to cause harm
No exceptions — not even for nonprofit or research use. That means no:
- child sexual abuse material, or content that sexualizes minors
- weapons development, including chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear
- mass surveillance or social-scoring systems
- disinformation campaigns, including election manipulation
- automated decisions that affect someone's legal rights without human oversight
- deepfakes or voice clones of real people without their consent
- robocalls, auto-dialers, or voice-phishing scams
- AI companion products designed to simulate romance or foster emotional dependency
5. Talk to us if your product gets huge
If your own product built on this — not through hosting it for others, that's covered above — crosses either threshold, you'll need a separate commercial license. Doesn't apply to nonprofit, government, or academic users.
| Threshold | |
|---|---|
| 500M+ | monthly active users |
| or | |
| $250M+ | annual revenue |
Good to know
- No warranty. The model is provided as-is. It isn't tested or certified for safety-critical use — medical, aviation, nuclear, or similar — so test thoroughly before relying on it in high-stakes settings.
- You handle your own compliance. Export controls, sanctions, and data-protection law (including India's DPDP Act, where it applies) are on you, not Bodhan AI.
- This deed doesn't replace the license. It leaves out most of the legal detail — termination, dispute resolution, confidentiality, and more all live in the full text. Read that before you rely on anything here.
Indic Open Model License — Bodhan AI / AI4Bharat, IIT Madras · Full license at bodhan.ai