As AI companies continue to rely on large-scale web scraping to train models, publishers are pushing back against uncompensated content use. In a recent article, The Register covered the release of Really Simple Licensing (RSL) 1.0, a new specification designed to give publishers clearer, machine-readable control over how their content is accessed, indexed, and used by AI systems.

RSL builds on familiar web standards like robots.txt and RSS, but goes further by allowing publishers to explicitly declare licensing terms, including when compensation is required for AI usage. The spec introduces granular permissions, such as allowing search indexing while prohibiting AI training, and creates a framework for enforcement through licensing, authentication, and encryption protocols.

Supertab was cited as one of the companies supporting the RSL ecosystem by providing a payment layer that can enable compliant AI systems to compensate publishers. Speaking with The Register, Supertab’s Managing Director of Growth, Erick McAfee, emphasized the real economic impact of unchecked AI scraping on publishers, from lost traffic to declining advertising revenue.

As Erick explained, Supertab is currently working with publishers to measure and model how AI bots interact with their content, with the long-term goal of enabling transparent invoicing and usage-based payments for AI systems that choose to comply. While billing is not yet live, early data from these implementations underscores how significant AI-driven content extraction has become.

The release of RSL 1.0 marks an important step toward a more accountable AI content economy, one where publishers can set clear terms, and AI companies have a path to pay for the value they consume.

Read the full article in The Register.

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