Really Simple Licensing (RSL) vs CoMP (Content Monetization Protocols)
The map lists them as complementary: sites and agents commonly implement both.
| Really Simple Licensing RSL | CoMP (Content Monetization Protocols) CoMP | |
|---|---|---|
| Lifecycle step | 3 Permit: What may the agent do here? | 3 Permit: What may the agent do here? |
| Answers | What machine-readable license, price, and authorization terms govern how AI systems and crawlers may access or reuse a publisher's content? | How does a licensed AI system ask a publisher or content marketplace for content, saying who it is, how it authenticates and what it will use the content for? |
| Governed by | RSL Collective, a vendor consortium; issue tracker at github.com/rslstandard/rsl | IAB Tech Lab; specification under CC-BY 3.0 in github.com/IABTechLab/CoMP |
| Status (issuer's words) | Recommendation (RSL's own maturity label, not a W3C/IETF Recommendation) — Document RSL-SPEC-1.0, Category 'Industry Specification' | CoMP v1 (Final): open for public comment until 2026-04-09 and finalized 2026-04-28, per IAB Tech Lab's initiative page |
| Version | RSL 1.0 (2025-12-10) | CoMP v1 (Final) (2026-04-28) |
| Form / transport | document format | endpoint |
| Found at | /rsl.xml | none defined; supply discovery is explicitly out of scope, and terms are reached through a licenseurl in the response |
| Implementation | shipping | none found |
| Evidence | 2 verified | 2 verified |
| Primary use case | Control AI crawling and training use | Serve readable content to agents |
| Last verified | 2026-10-23 (current) | 2026-10-23 (current) |
| Specification | https://rslstandard.org/rsl | https://github.com/IABTechLab/CoMP/blob/main/CoMP-1.0.md |
When to use which
- Choose Really Simple Licensing when your question is “What machine-readable license, price, and authorization terms govern how AI systems and crawlers may access or reuse a publisher's content?” and you accept its maturity: status "Recommendation (RSL's own maturity label, not a W3C/IETF Recommendation) — Document RSL-SPEC-1.0, Category 'Industry Specification'", implementation shipping.
- Choose CoMP (Content Monetization Protocols) when your question is “How does a licensed AI system ask a publisher or content marketplace for content, saying who it is, how it authenticates and what it will use the content for?” and you accept its maturity: status "CoMP v1 (Final): open for public comment until 2026-04-09 and finalized 2026-04-28, per IAB Tech Lab's initiative page", implementation none found.
Read the full articles
- Really Simple Licensing: What machine-readable license, price, and authorization terms govern how AI systems and crawlers may access or reuse a publisher's content?
- CoMP (Content Monetization Protocols): How does a licensed AI system ask a publisher or content marketplace for content, saying who it is, how it authenticates and what it will use the content for?