01
Pay per output
AI companies compensate content owners each time their work generates an AI output — building sustainable royalty streams while scaling licensing costs with usage.
Our mission — fair pay
Fair compensation for publishers and creators.
The mission of the RSL Collective is to build the foundation for a fair internet content economy in the AI era — ensuring publishers and creators are compensated when their work fuels AI, just as they have been in every past wave of media.
For decades royalties have rewarded creators: authors when books are sold, musicians when songs are streamed, publishers when content is viewed. AI must follow the same principle.
AI uses your content toGenerate model responsesPower RAG applicationsRespond to AI agents
Pay-per-output royalties
Paid every time your content generates an output.
When an article, dataset, or image is used by an AI system to generate a result, the content owner receives fair royalties and attribution — a sustainable stream that scales with usage.
02
Royalties & attribution
Every use to power a foundation model, a RAG application, or an AI agent returns fair royalties and attribution to the content owner.
03
A sustainable model
Pay-per-output creates a new content business model for the AI-first internet — where creativity is rewarded and AI companies get efficient access to the knowledge they need.
Why it matters
“World-class digital creators are needed to power the AI systems of the future. Creators are essential to the success of the AI era — and must be fairly compensated.”
NV
Neil Vogel
Chief Executive Officer, People Inc.
Compensation
Paid for the value your content creates.
Your work isn't averaged into a flat rate. Compensation follows how your content is used to produce AI outputs and how much value that use delivers — so distinctive, trusted, heavily-relied-upon content earns accordingly.
01
The value of the contribution
Content that drives an output, or that an AI surfaces by name, earns more than content used lightly. Behind-the-scenes influence counts too — just proportionally.
02
The depth of reliance
Sources that AI systems return to again and again earn more over time. Consistent, trusted content is recognized for the reliance it carries — not just a single use.
03
The value of the use
Content powering higher-value AI products and markets is compensated from those richer pools. Premium use is paid as premium.
How it works
Rights in, royalties out.
Publishers declare their rights once. The collective licenses access to AI developers and returns royalties, measured and audited.
Publishers
declare rights
→
RSL standard
machine-readable
→
Collective license
single agreement
→
AI developers
licensed access
← royalties + attribution
Usage-based distribution returns to publishers, measured and audited by the collective.
The Creator Bill of Rights for the AI era
Three rights every content owner holds.
Right 01
Control
All content owners have the right to control who uses their content for AI training, and for what purpose.
Right 02
Representation
All content owners have the right to negotiate collectively with AI companies to determine fair compensation.
Right 03
Royalties
All content owners have the right to receive royalties or attribution every time their content is used to generate an AI output.
Join the collective
Protect the open web. Get paid when AI uses your work.
Join the RSL Collective for free to help protect the open web, and receive fair royalties and attribution every time AI companies use your content to generate a result.