Pay-per-output? AI firms blindsided by beefed up robots.txt instructions
21 hours ago
- #AI
- #Publishing
- #Content Licensing
- Leading internet companies and publishers propose the 'Really Simply Licensing' (RSL) standard to address unauthorized AI content scraping.
- RSL evolves robots.txt by adding an automated licensing layer to ensure fair compensation for creators.
- The standard is free, open, and decentralized, clarifying licensing, usage, and compensation terms for AI training data.
- Founded by Doug Leeds (ex-CEO of Ask.com) and Eckart Walther (ex-Yahoo VP), the RSL Collective created the standard.
- RSL is based on the RSS standard and protects various digital content types (webpages, books, videos, datasets).
- Supports multiple compensation models: free, attribution, subscription, pay-per-crawl, and pay-per-inference.
- The idea emerged from discussions between Leeds and Walther on AI's impact on search and publisher challenges.