"However, more AI orgs might have to pay up soon, because the Really Simple Licensing (RSL) spec has reached version 1.0, providing guidance on how to set machine-readable rules for crawlers. "Today's release of RSL 1.0 marks an inflection point for the open internet," said Eckart Walther, chair of the RSL technical steering committee, in a statement. "RSL establishes clarity, transparency, and the foundation for new economic frameworks for publishers and AI systems, ensuring that internet innovation can continue to flourish, underpinned by clear, accountable content rights.""
"Introduced in September, RSL represents a response to the explosion of automated content harvesting intended to provide fodder for AI model training. It's intended to complement the Robots Exclusion Protocol [ RFC 9309], a way for websites to declare acceptable methods of engagement through a robots.txt file. In a bid to prevent their content from being laundered for profit in an AI model, publishers are increasingly trying to negotiate licensing deals or block bot-based data gathering."
"RSL builds upon syndication spec RSS and the Robots Exclusion Protocol by providing a way to declare requirements for accessing and processing content, which may involve a demand for compensation. The specification includes an XML vocabulary for describing content usage, licensing, and legal terms of service. The RSL document - functionally a machine readable license - can be integrated with other web mechanisms, including robots.txt, HTTP headers, RSS feeds, and HTML link elements."
Most big AI providers scrape the open web, hoovering up content to improve chatbots that compete with publishers for internet users' attention. RSL 1.0 provides machine-readable rules that let website operators declare requirements for accessing and processing content, including potential demands for compensation. RSL complements the Robots Exclusion Protocol and builds on RSS syndication to formalize crawler behavior and licensing expectations. The specification defines an XML vocabulary for content usage, licensing, and legal terms, and the RSL document functions as a machine-readable license that can be integrated with robots.txt, HTTP headers, RSS feeds, and HTML link elements. RSL aims to enable license acquisition and enforcement.
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