Elthian-NoAI License v1.0
- 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.
- Definitions
Core 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, benchmark, label, curate datasets for, or otherwise influence the parameters, weights, internal representations, routing, memory, retrieval behavior, safety behavior, preferences, or performance of an AI System, including pretraining, fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, preference learning, supervised learning, self-supervised learning, evaluation, benchmarking, dataset construction, filtering, labeling, and data annotation for model development.
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 its protectable selection, coordination, and arrangement, including output that materially substitutes for the Content.
2.10 “Licensee” means any individual or entity that accesses or uses the Content under this License, including any entity that deploys, operates, provides, or controls an AI System.
2.11 “Human Access” means access by a natural person using a standard web browser or comparable interactive user agent, without Automated Access. Human Access does not include a natural person delegating retrieval, parsing, summarization, extraction, or interpretation of the Content to an AI System, OS-level agent, headless browser, automation tool, or synthetic user agent.
2.12 “Incidental Technical Copying” means transient copies made solely as a necessary technical step in ordinary network transmission or browser rendering (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.
2.13 “Attribution” means reasonable credit to the Licensor (and author where provided), including (where a public URL exists) a link to the original Content, and a reference to this License’s canonical URL.
2.14 “Scope” means the Content coverage to which a license notice or policy applies, which may be site-wide, limited to a section or category, defined by a URL pattern, or limited to an individual resource or URL.
2.15 “AI Search” means query-based discovery whose output: (a) includes Attribution and a direct, user-clickable link to the original Content, (b) presents only non-substitutive excerpts or metadata-level signals as permitted by the applicable license, and (c) is designed to direct the user to the source rather than provide a stand-alone answer.
2.16 “AI Indexing” means building, maintaining, or updating an index or retrieval structure over Content for AI Search or other AI System uses, including creating or maintaining inverted indexes, vector indexes, embedding stores, feature stores, or other retrieval artifacts.
Additional Definitions (License-Specific)
2.17 None.
- No License Grant for AI Use
3.1 No Rights Granted. The Licensor grants no rights for any AI System use, including Automated Access, AI Indexing, AI Search, 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, linkable, indexed by non-AI search engines, 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, or technical norms, robots directives, llms.txt directives, the absence of access controls, or similar circumstances as a basis for claiming AI permission.
3.5 No Concession of Defenses. Licensor does not grant permission for AI use and does not concede that any AI use is lawful, transformative, or otherwise permitted under any doctrine or defense. Licensor reserves all rights, arguments, and remedies.
3.6 Separate Written Permission Only. Any permission for AI use must be granted in a separate writing signed (or expressly assented to) by the Licensor. No other statement or conduct will be construed as permission.
- 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 AI Indexing or AI Search. Perform AI Indexing or AI Search using the Content.
4.3 Train or Evaluate. Use the Content for Training or evaluation of any AI System, including dataset construction, benchmarking, labeling, filtering, and data annotation for model development.
4.4 Embed or Vectorize. Create, store, reuse, or distribute any Embedding or representation derived from the Content, whether persistent or transient, for any AI System purpose.
4.5 RAG or Context 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, regardless of whether Training occurs.
4.7 Generate Derivative AI Output. Produce Derivative AI Output influenced by or derived from the Content, including by quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, translating, rewriting, style imitation, or structural imitation.
4.8 Mimic Expression. Use AI Systems to reproduce or approximate the Content’s protectable expressive structure, selection, coordination, or arrangement.
- 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.
- 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.
- General Conditions
7.1 No Removal of Notices. Licensee must not remove, obscure, or falsify copyright notices, authorship information, or embedded licensing metadata.
7.2 No Endorsement. Licensee must not imply that the Licensor endorses Licensee, Licensee’s AI System, or any outputs, products, or services, unless separately agreed in writing.
- Notice, Metadata, and Technical Signals
8.1 Signals Are Complementary. The Content may provide notice of this License through robots.txt, llms.txt, HTTP headers, meta tags, structured data, sitemaps, or other machine-readable signals. Absence of one signal does not waive the prohibition where other notice exists.
8.2 Technical Signals Do Not Limit Legal Prohibition. Technical directives are complementary signals and do not limit the scope of this legal prohibition.
- Cessation and Remedies
9.1 Cessation Duty After Notice. Upon written notice of suspected unauthorized AI System use of the Content, Licensee must promptly cease the suspected activity.
9.2 Deletion and Disablement. To the extent feasible and subject to applicable law, Licensee must promptly delete retained copies and derived representations (including Embeddings, indexes, or stored excerpts) that would otherwise enable continued unauthorized use, and must disable any pipelines, agents, or retrieval systems that are using the Content.
9.3 No Rights by Cure. Any remediation, deletion, or cessation does not grant permission or create any license for AI System use.
9.4 Injunctive Relief. Unauthorized AI System use may cause irreparable harm. Licensor may seek injunctive or equitable relief in addition to other remedies.
9.5 Statutory Rights Preserved. This License does not limit any rights or remedies available under copyright law, including statutory damages where applicable.
- Compliance Evidence and Cooperation (Privacy-Safe)
10.1 Reasonable and Proportionate Requests. Any request for compliance evidence must be reasonable and proportionate to the suspected unauthorized use, taking into account scale, the specificity of the allegation, and applicable law.
10.2 Preservation Duty After Notice. Upon written notice of suspected unauthorized use, Licensee must preserve relevant records reasonably necessary to verify compliance to the extent permitted by applicable law. Licensee should provide such records in aggregated, anonymized, or redacted form where feasible.
10.3 Written Attestation. Upon reasonable request, Licensee must provide a written attestation describing safeguards used to prevent unauthorized AI System use, without requiring disclosure of personal data or confidential security details beyond what is reasonably necessary to evidence compliance.
10.4 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.
- No Trademark Rights
This License does not grant any rights in the Licensor’s trademarks, service marks, trade names, or branding.
- 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.
- 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.
- Governing Law and Venue
This License is governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.
To the extent enforceable, the parties consent to exclusive venue and jurisdiction in the state or federal courts located in Delaware for disputes arising from or relating to this License.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Licensor may seek injunctive or equitable relief, or bring claims for unauthorized use, in any court of competent jurisdiction where the alleged conduct occurs or where a defendant is located, and nothing in this License limits the Licensor’s ability to do so.
If a court determines the Delaware venue provision is unenforceable as to a particular party or claim, venue and jurisdiction will lie in any court of competent jurisdiction that has a reasonable connection to the dispute.
- 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.
- No Waiver
Failure by Licensor to enforce any provision does not constitute a waiver of future enforcement of that or any other provision.
- Notice by Conduct (Acknowledgement of Restrictions)
By engaging in Automated Access to Content that provides notice of this License, Licensee is on notice that no permission for AI System use is granted and that any such use is unauthorized. This provision is intended as notice and does not require Licensor to prove assent to preserve Licensor’s rights and remedies.
- Interpretation
Headings are for convenience only and do not affect interpretation.
Machine-Readable Metadata (Reference Example)
Illustrative example aligned to the Elthian Policy Declaration structure:
{
"version": "1.0",
"site_id": "2f3c7d9a6b1e2a9d4c0b8f1a7e6d5c4b3a2f1e0d9c8b7a6f5e4d3c2b1a0f9e8d",
"timestamp": "2026-01-01T12:00:00Z",
"default_policy": {
"license": "elthian-noai"
},
"scopes": [],
"url_overrides": [],
"metadata": {
"plugin_version": "1.0.0",
"wp_version": "6.4.2",
"php_version": "8.2.12",
"site_timezone": "America/New_York",
"total_posts": 0,
"confidence": "unverified"
}
}