When we use Gemini, ChatGPT or Grok, it is easy to think that this ability to produce results in a few seconds borders on the extraordinary, even with its common flaws. But there’s no mystery: they depend on models trained with massive amounts of information. This process has ignited an increasingly intense debate about how all that content is used and the extent of control of those who generate it. In this climate a proposal appears that attempts to bring some order.
Mass extraction of content. The accelerated growth of AI has exposed the aforementioned phenomenon. Companies use proprietary trackers and third-party data sets that aggregate material from thousands of websites. For publishers, the problem is not just scale, but a lack of transparency about what is collected, how it is used, and who profits. The clash between these interests has fueled demands and debates about the balance between innovation and copyright.
What is RSL 1.0. Now comes RSL 1.0, an open standard designed to let publishers express, in machine-readable form, how their content should be used in the age of AI. The initiative arises from the RSL Collective and the RSL Technical Steering Committee, where internet companies, media and standards organizations such as Yahoo, Ziff Davis and O’Reilly Media participate. The objective is for the media to be able to define transparent rules of use and licensing that AI systems must respect.
An operating standard. Here the robots.txt file appears on the scene, which has been the fundamental tool to guide web crawlers, allowing or denying access to certain routes on a site. That simplicity was useful for years, although it did not contemplate specific uses such as training AI models. RSL 1.0 goes one step further and describes differentiated permissions through categories such as “ai-input”, designed for training, or “ai-index”, linked to classic indexing. The “ai-all” category allows you to block any use related to AI.
The idea is that with this system editors can define specific limits without losing visibility in search engines. The rules are still simple, but now much more informative.
Resolving a key limitation. Until now, according to the promoters of the initiative, a publisher who wants to avoid this use must accept that their content will also stop appearing in traditional search, because Google does not offer an individual option to separate both areas. For the co-founders of the RSL Collective, “RSL provides exactly that layer that was missing,” by allowing independent control between both uses.
The contribution model. One of the most notable new features of RSL 1.0 is the “contribution” system, designed so that creators and non-profit organizations can demand contributions from the AI systems that use their material. The initiative has been developed together with Creative Commons and seeks to reinforce the sustainability of the digital commons, which brings together billions of open resources on the web. Its executive director, Anna Tumadóttir, points out that “it is essential that there are fair sharing options beyond commercial licenses, in order to continue supporting the commons and protect access to knowledge in the age of AI.”
Wide adoption. The release of RSL 1.0 has generated notable support among publishers, platforms, and technical bodies, as well as support from infrastructure providers such as Cloudflare, Akamai, and Fastly. Their involvement is relevant because these services can directly apply the rules that the editors define.
Now, although RSL 1.0 introduces a clearer framework for expressing usage rules, it does not solve all the problems posed by training AI models. The standard relies on trackers to follow it and infrastructure providers to enforce it, so companies that ignore these signals could continue to collect content without permission. It is also unclear how it will affect small publishers who lack the resources to negotiate with large platforms.
The advancement of AI has changed the way we interact with information, although we often forget that behind those quick results is content created by millions of people. We have to wait to see if RSL 1.0 will balance the rules of the game.
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