Name: Elthian-NoAI License (the “License”)
Version: 1.0
Licensor: The party publishing the Content with a reference to this License (the “Licensor”).
License Steward: Elthian LLC (Delaware), as publisher of the canonical license text and identifiers.
Canonical URL: https://elthian.com/licensing/elthian-noai-license-v1-0/
Effective Date: The date the Content is first made available with a reference to this License.
1. Purpose and Intent
This License provides a clear, enforceable prohibition on the use of the Content by AI Systems. It distinguishes Human Access from Automated Access and makes explicit that public availability of Content does not grant permission for AI processing.
This License is designed to be interpreted as a no-license notice for AI use: the default position is that AI use is unauthorized unless the Licensor grants separate written permission.
2. Definitions
For purposes of this License:
2.1 “Content” means the copyrighted work(s) (text, images, audio, video, data compilations, metadata, markup, and other protectable expression) that reference or incorporate this License.
2.2 “AI System” means any automated system, model, agent, service, crawler, pipeline, or tool that performs or enables any of the following using algorithmic, statistical, machine learning, neural network, or similar techniques: inference, generation, summarization, embedding, clustering, classification, ranking, retrieval augmentation, or training.
2.3 “Automated Access” means access to Content by non-human means, including crawling, scraping, harvesting, downloading, indexing, parsing, copying, screenshotting, transcription, or any programmatic retrieval, whether authenticated or not.
2.4 “Training” means using Content to create, improve, tune, evaluate, or otherwise influence the parameters, weights, internal representations, routing, memory, or behavior of an AI System, including pretraining, fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, preference learning, supervised learning, self-supervised learning, evaluation, benchmarking, and dataset construction.
2.5 “Inference” means processing Content at run time to produce outputs, including answers, summaries, classifications, rankings, or generated content, regardless of whether Training occurs.
2.6 “Embedding” means any vector, token sequence, latent representation, hash-derived semantic signature, or other representation computed from Content for storage, retrieval, similarity comparison, clustering, or downstream use.
2.7 “RAG” (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) means any system or workflow in which Content is retrieved, embedded, injected, provided, or otherwise used at inference time to influence, condition, or generate output by an AI System.
2.8 “Product Use” means use of Content by or within an AI-enabled product, feature, agent, workflow, assistant, copilot, or service, whether internal or external, whether public-facing or restricted, and regardless of whether Training occurs.
2.9 “Derivative AI Output” means any output that reproduces, paraphrases, summarizes, translates, imitates, transforms, or otherwise reflects protected expressive elements of the Content, including output that materially substitutes for the Content.
2.10 “Licensee” means any individual or entity that engages in Automated Access to the Content, or deploys, operates, provides, or controls an AI System that engages in Automated Access.
2.11 “Human Access” means access by a natural person using a standard web browser or comparable interactive user agent, without Automated Access.
2.12 “Incidental Technical Copying” means transient copies made solely as a necessary technical step in ordinary network transmission or browser rendering for Human Access (for example, caching by a browser, CDN, ISP, or proxy), provided such copying is not used for Automated Access, AI processing, Product Use, RAG, Training, or Embedding, and is not repurposed for any AI System.
3. No License Grant for AI Use
3.1 No Rights Granted. The Licensor grants no rights for any AI System use, including Automated Access, Training, Inference, Embedding, RAG, Product Use, or Derivative AI Output.
3.2 Reservation of Rights. All rights not expressly granted are reserved. Since no rights are granted for AI use, any AI System use is unauthorized unless the Licensor separately licenses it in writing.
3.3 Public Availability Not Consent. The fact that Content is accessible via the public internet, indexed by non-AI search engines, linkable, or otherwise reachable does not create consent, an implied license, a waiver, or permission for AI System use.
3.4 No Reliance. Licensee may not rely on custom, industry, technical norms, robots directives, or the absence of access controls as a basis for claiming AI permission.
4. Prohibited Conduct (Not Exhaustive)
Without limitation, Licensee must not, and must not enable any third party to:
4.1 Crawl or Scrape. Perform Automated Access to the Content for any AI System purpose.
4.2 Index or Rank. Index, rank, classify, label, or otherwise process the Content using an AI System, including AI search, answer engines, or generative search features.
4.3 Train or Evaluate. Use the Content for Training or evaluation of any AI System, including dataset construction, benchmarking, and data labeling for model development.
4.4 Embed or Vectorize. Create, store, or reuse any Embedding or representation derived from the Content, whether persistent or transient, for any AI System purpose.
4.5 RAG or Prompt Injection. Use the Content in RAG pipelines, prompt stuffing, context injection, memory stores, agent toolchains, or any retrieval system designed to influence AI outputs.
4.6 Product Use. Use the Content in any AI-enabled product, whether internal enterprise tools or public services.
4.7 Generate Derivative AI Output. Produce Derivative AI Output influenced by or derived from the Content, including by quoting, paraphrasing, summarising, translating, rewriting, style imitation, or structural imitation.
5. Anti-Circumvention and Evasion
5.1 No Evasion by Fragmentation. Licensee may not fragment, shard, or distribute retrieval of Content across multiple requests, IP addresses, user agents, regions, accounts, sessions, or vendors to avoid detection or to approximate prohibited storage, indexing, or dataset creation.
5.2 No “Transient Only” Workaround. Repeated transient access intended to approximate persistent availability, indexing, dataset construction, or continuous product functionality is prohibited, even if individual copies are deleted on a schedule.
5.3 No Proxy Laundering. Licensee may not obtain Content through intermediaries, third-party aggregators, contractors, or research partners as a means to circumvent this License.
5.4 No Reassembly. Any attempt to reconstruct, recompose, or approximate the Content, its substance, or its expressive structure through multiple accesses, summaries, partial extracts, embeddings, or output stitching is prohibited.
5.5 No Agentic Browsing Pretext. Using headless browsers, synthetic users, or agent-driven browsing to obtain Content for AI use constitutes Automated Access and is prohibited.
6. Human Access and Incidental Technical Copying
6.1 Human Access Allowed. Human Access is permitted, subject to any separate site terms.
6.2 Incidental Technical Copying Allowed. Incidental Technical Copying strictly necessary to deliver Human Access is permitted, provided it is not repurposed for any AI System purpose.
7. Notice, Metadata, and Technical Signals
7.1 License Notice. The Content may provide notice of this License through headers, meta tags, structured data, robots directives, sitemaps, or other machine-readable signals. Lack of one signal does not waive the prohibition where other notice exists.
7.2 Robots and Headers Are Complementary. robots.txt and headers are technical signals and do not limit the scope of this legal prohibition.
8. Cessation and Remedies
8.1 Cessation Duty. Upon notice of suspected unauthorized AI use, Licensee must promptly cease the suspected activity and preserve relevant evidence as required by applicable law.
8.2 Injunctive Relief. Unauthorized AI use may cause irreparable harm. Licensor may seek injunctive or equitable relief in addition to other remedies.
8.3 Statutory Rights Preserved. This License does not limit any rights or remedies available under copyright law, including statutory damages where applicable.
9. Compliance Evidence and Cooperation (Privacy-Safe)
9.1 Reasonable and Proportionate Requests. Any request for compliance evidence must be reasonable and proportionate to the suspected breach, taking into account scale, the specificity of the allegation, and applicable law.
9.2 Preservation Duty After Notice. Upon written notice of suspected breach, Licensee must preserve relevant records reasonably necessary to verify compliance to the extent permitted by applicable law. Licensee should provide such records in aggregated, anonymised, or redacted form where feasible.
9.3 Written Attestation. Upon reasonable request, Licensee must provide a written attestation describing safeguards used to prevent prohibited AI use, without requiring disclosure of personal data or confidential security details beyond what is reasonably necessary to evidence compliance.
9.4 Refusal as Evidence. Refusal to provide reasonable cooperation after credible notice may be treated as evidence supporting an inference of unauthorized use, to the extent permitted by law.
10. Disclaimer
THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” LICENSOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.
11. Limitation of Liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL LICENSOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, OR GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THIS LICENSE OR THE CONTENT, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
11A. No Trademark Rights
This License does not grant any rights in the Licensor’s trademarks, service marks, trade names, or branding.
12. Governing Law and Venue
This License is governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. The parties consent to exclusive venue and jurisdiction in state or federal courts located in Delaware for disputes arising from or relating to this License, subject to the Licensor’s right to seek injunctive relief in any jurisdiction where breach occurs.
13. Severability
If any provision of this License is held invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force, and the invalid provision will be interpreted to best effectuate the original intent to the maximum extent permitted by law.
14. No Waiver
Failure by Licensor to enforce any provision does not constitute a waiver of future enforcement of that or any other provision.
15. Acceptance by Conduct (Notice and Remedy Acknowledgment)
By engaging in Automated Access to Content that provides notice of this License, Licensee acknowledges that no AI license is granted and agrees that the restrictions and remedy provisions described in Sections 5, 8, and 9 apply to the maximum extent permitted by law. This Section supplements, and does not replace, Licensor’s rights under copyright law.
Machine-Readable Metadata (reference example)
{
"aiUse": "prohibited",
"license": "https://elthianlabs.com/licenses/noai"
}