Key points
- Yahoo is the first licensee of the Internet Licensing Collective (ILC), formerly RSL, covering content used in its AI search engine Scout.
- Yahoo pays a blanket fee tied to demand-side revenue; ILC co-founder Doug Leeds declined to disclose the amount.
- Each AI company gets its own royalty pool, so publishers are paid only from products that use their content. Over 3,000 publishers have joined.
- A Mather Economics report estimates collective licensing could yield publisher pay equal to 15% to 35% of AI company revenue.
Why it matters for marketers: Marketers and content teams at publishers get a possible usage-based revenue path from AI search, along with a portal showing how their content is used and who can license it.
Yahoo has become the first licensee of the Internet Licensing Collective, the new name for the group previously called RSL. Publishers in the collective can license content for Yahoo's AI-powered search engine Scout and be paid based on how that content is used. Most AI licensing so far has been one-off deals between a publisher and a tech company, and ILC is pursuing a collective model instead.
Under the structure described by co-founder Doug Leeds, a licensee pays a blanket fee tied to its demand-side revenue, so the pool can grow as the licensee does. Each AI company's payment goes into its own royalty pool rather than one shared fund. Leeds said this keeps specialized publishers from being diluted, for example a small group of medical sites whose content may be worth far more to a health AI product. Allocation rules weigh how content is used and whether the publisher is cited, though the exact formula was not disclosed. Yahoo declined to be interviewed.
For publishers and content teams, the practical shift is control and visibility. Over 3,000 publishers are in the collective, and a portal lets them see whether content is used for RAG or training. They can also choose which AI companies to license to as more sign on. Right now Yahoo is the only option. A Mather Economics report estimated collective licensing could produce compensation equal to 15% to 35% of AI company revenue, though that is a projection.
Watch for further licensees. Leeds said ILC is talking with some major AI companies but did not name them. Publishers should also check how their existing AI deals interact with the collective, since content can be pulled out if a separate agreement is signed.
Sources
This brief is our own summary. Read the full reporting at the source.