This new system wants to make AI training content licensing easy
AI companies are facing a wave of copyright lawsuits—over 40 and counting—after big names like Anthropic settled for $1.5 billion over unauthorized data use.
Now, a new system called Real Simple Licensing (RSL) is stepping in to help. Supported by sites like Reddit, Quora, and Yahoo, RSL wants to make it easier (and more legit) for AI firms to use online content for training their models.
RSL lets publishers set clear rules about content usage
Co-created by RSS pioneer Eckart Walther, RSL lets publishers set clear rules about how their content can be used, using "robots.txt" files that AI bots can read automatically.
There's also an RSL Collective that handles royalty deals—think of it like the music industry's ASCAP but for web content.
While some major platforms already cut their own licensing deals, this gives smaller sites a fair shot at protecting their work as AI keeps evolving.