What is RSL, and how does a site publish licence terms for AI?
Really Simple Licensing, RSL, is a way for a publisher to point machines at machine-readable licence terms for its content, including terms that ask an AI company to pay for use. A site advertises its terms in robots.txt, in a page or in a header.
What it actually is
A licence on a web page has always been written for people. RSL puts the terms in a form software can read: a licence file describing what may be done with the content and on what terms, and a pointer to it. RSL says terms can be advertised in robots.txt, in web pages and in HTTP headers, and we read a License line in robots.txt and a licence link of the RSL type in the page head or a header. An ordinary Creative Commons link is a different thing and does not count.
Why it matters
For a publisher whose content is the product, saying only "do not take this" leaves a lot unsaid. RSL lets the answer be "you may, on these terms", in a form a machine can find. Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly, Reddit and Yahoo are among its supporters, which is what gives it a chance of becoming a convention.
What good looks like
A pointer to RSL terms that resolve to a real licence file describing your actual terms, in the place a machine will look. The terms should say what you mean, and match your other statements about AI use.
Being honest about it
It is advanced and optional. Backing from CDNs and publishers is real, but no AI company is known to honour it yet, so today it is a statement of terms, not a mechanism that gets anyone paid. It never fails a page and stays out of the headline score.
Where most sites go wrong
The common mistake is a Creative Commons licence link mistaken for an RSL declaration; they are different formats. The other is a pointer to a licence file that moved or never existed, which advertises terms nobody can read.
On the web
In October 2026, <1% of the sites we scanned passed the “Licensing terms for AI (RSL)” check.
| Result | Share of sites |
|---|---|
| Pass | <1% |
| Worth a look | 98% |
| To fix | 0% |
| Couldn't judge | 2% |
WordPress sites pass it most often, at 0%. WordPress sites pass it least often, at 0%.
Not enough history yet.
Based on the sites Bot Appétit has scanned: ones people chose to scan, plus lists we scan for research. Not a random sample of the web.
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