🔒 Clear permissions
Explicit control over every AI use case.
🤖 Machine-readable
Signals built for automated systems.
⚖️ Practically enforceable
Not performative. Defensible by design.
🔗 Standards-aligned
Built on RSL 1.0, robots.txt, C2PA, and more.
Why Elthian Licensing Exists
AI has changed the meaning of "use".
Content is now crawled for discovery, ingested for training, embedded into retrieval systems, and incorporated into products in ways that traditional licenses were never designed to express clearly.
Elthian builds on emerging standards like Really Simple Licensing (RSL) 1.0 and complementary signals such as robots.txt, HTTP headers, and authenticity initiatives like C2PA — offering creators a flexible, self-managed alternative, or supplement, to broader collective frameworks.
Creators need a structure that:
✅ Clarifies permitted AI use — search, assistance, training, and product use.
✅ Limits unauthorized reuse and substitution.
✅ Strengthens authorship evidence.
✅ Integrates directly into modern publishing workflows.
Core Components
1. License Suite for AI Use
A set of standardized licenses designed specifically for AI-era use cases, forming a clear control ladder. Readable by humans, machine-readable for platforms, and defensible in practice.
Elthian-NoAI
No AI access of any kind — including crawling, training, embeddings, or product use.
Best for: sensitive, proprietary, paid, or personal content.
Elthian-NoTrain
Discovery and citation allowed. Training prohibited.
Best for: publishers who want discovery without ingestion.
Elthian-UseOnly
Human-in-the-loop assistance allowed. Expressive output prohibited.
Best for: enterprise internal copilots, assistants, and workflows.
Elthian-NonCommercial
AI use allowed only for non-commercial purposes.
Best for: academic, research, and non-profit use.
Elthian-Public
Broad reuse permitted, including commercial use and training.
Best for: open knowledge and public datasets.
Elthian-Custom
Fine-grained, policy-driven controls across search, training, RAG, product use, and outputs.
Best for: enterprises, agencies, and mixed-policy sites.
License Comparison
| License | AI Training | AI Search | Product / RAG Use | Derivative AI Output | Typical Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elthian-NoAI | ❌ Prohibited | ❌ Prohibited | ❌ Prohibited | ❌ Prohibited | Sensitive, proprietary, paid, or personal content |
| Elthian-NoTrain | ❌ Prohibited | ✅ Allowed (referential only) | ❌ Prohibited | ❌ Prohibited | Publishers who want discovery without ingestion |
| Elthian-UseOnly | ❌ Prohibited | ❌ Prohibited | ✅ Allowed (internal, human-in-the-loop) | ❌ Prohibited | Enterprise internal copilots, assistants, workflows |
| Elthian-NonCommercial | ⚠️ Restricted | ⚠️ Restricted | ⚠️ Restricted | ⚠️ Restricted | Academic, research, non-profit use |
| Elthian-Public | ✅ Allowed | ✅ Allowed | ✅ Allowed | ✅ Allowed | Open knowledge, public datasets |
| Elthian-Custom | Configurable | Configurable | Configurable | Configurable | Enterprises, agencies, mixed-policy sites |
2. The WordPress AI Licensing Plugin
A creator-first WordPress plugin that allows publishers to declare, publish, and signal AI usage permissions for their content in a clear, machine-readable way.
Lite — Free
- Define a default AI usage policy for your site.
- Apply per-post AI usage overrides where required.
- Publish policies via
llms.txt,robots.txt, HTTP headers, and machine-readable JSON. - Explicit permissions for training, search/indexing, derivative use, and commercial use.
- Full local control — no content sharing.
Pro — Extended
- Site-wide policy management with granular scope rules (post type, taxonomy, URL patterns).
- Advanced crawler directives and extended HTTP headers.
- Admin tools for policy auditing, history, and compliance visibility.
- Optional registry integration and signed policy declarations.
- Future support for policy-filtered sitemaps.
The Lite plugin is fully functional on its own. Pro extends enforcement, verification, and ecosystem integration.
3. Usage and Compliance Signals
An extensible set of interoperable signals designed to make AI usage intent explicit to automated systems and downstream consumers.
Signals include
- Extended HTTP headers for licence declaration and usage constraints.
- Signed policy snapshots and historical records.
- Policy-aware analytics and compliance indicators.
Structured differentiation
- Search / indexing
- Training
- Derivative generation
- Commercial or product use
Forward compatibility
- Emerging licence standards (RSL-style models).
- Registry integrations.
- Verified dataset exports (allow, restrict, deny).
- Compliance-oriented AI training pipelines.
Design Principles
🔍 Clarity
Licensing must be understandable, explicit, and precise — including for edge cases like RAG and search summarization.
🤝 Respect
Creators deserve systems that protect their work without blocking legitimate innovation or research.
⚖️ Neutrality
The framework works across platforms and toolchains — not locked into a proprietary ecosystem.
✍️ Authenticity
Authorship and origin are supported by modern evidence mechanisms, not informal assumptions.
🏗️ Longevity
Built for the next decade of publishing, not the last decade of licensing.
Who It Is For
The goal is not to police creativity. The goal is to create conditions where creators and platforms can operate with confidence, transparency, and trust.
- Creators who want clear control over AI use.
- Publishers seeking AI-aware rights management.
- Developers who need a clean, interoperable framework.
- Platforms that need reliable, machine-readable usage intent.
- Organizations maintaining long-term content archives.
Where the Framework Is Heading
Elthian Licensing is in active development. The license suite is being refined, the WordPress toolchain is being built, and the long-term governance structure will be published deliberately.
Future developments may include:
- Licensing dashboards and site-wide policy management.
- Standardized machine-readable rights metadata formats.
- AI training consent layers aligned with emerging standards (including RSL 1.0).
- Automated detection and notification tools.
- Platform-level verification and integration options.
- Verified dataset exports (whitelist, greylist, blacklist) for compliant training and research workflows.
The Elthian Philosophy Behind Licensing
Elthian Licensing is built on a simple idea: ownership still matters, even when the medium changes.
As AI accelerates, clarity becomes infrastructure. Authorship becomes evidence. Intent becomes enforceable.
This framework is our contribution to a future where creators retain agency over their work, and intelligent systems interact with content under clear, transparent rules.