{
  "dataset": "glossary",
  "record": {
    "id": "rsl",
    "term": "RSL (Really Simple Licensing)",
    "category": "commerce",
    "short_def": "An open standard for machine-readable content-licensing terms, referenced from robots.txt, that tells AI systems how content may be used and at what price.",
    "long_def": "Really Simple Licensing (RSL) launched on 10 September 2025, backed by Reddit, Yahoo, Medium and People Inc. among others. It defines license models — free, attribution, subscription, pay-per-crawl, pay-per-inference — in an XML file referenced from robots.txt, so AI crawlers can read the terms before using content.",
    "see_also": [],
    "etymology_origin": "Launched 10 September 2025 by the RSL Collective.",
    "related_to": [],
    "contrast_with": "RSL states the licensing TERMS; Cloudflare pay-per-crawl is one mechanism that ENFORCES payment — RSL can name pay-per-crawl as a license model.",
    "example": "A publisher publishes an RSL file declaring pay-per-inference licensing for its archive.",
    "source": "https://rslstandard.org/press/rsl-standard",
    "status": "emerging",
    "why_it_matters": "The emerging neutral standard for AI content licensing — the 'terms' layer of access economics.",
    "sameAs": [
      "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Really_Simple_Licensing"
    ],
    "bridge_entity": "/access-economics",
    "last_verified": "2026-06-15",
    "md_twin": "/glossary/rsl.md"
  }
}